A Punjabi TV presenter in Canada has been sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for importing drugs from the United States.
A 47-year-old woman who has worked as a Punjabi radio and television presenter in Canada for the past 10 years has been sentenced to 5.5 years in prison after she was caught red-handed while smuggling methamphetamine from the United States in 2021.
The ruling was handed down recently after Sukhavinder Kaur Sangha pleaded guilty to importing the drugs, which police estimate is worth $1 million to $10 million. Her lawyer said she was forced to commit the crime to pay someone who was threatening to kill or harm her then-teenage son if she didn’t pay $150,000, the Vancouver Sun reported. Sangha’s lawyer asked for house arrest of two years or less plus three years’ probation while the prosecutor was asking for 10 to 12 years in prison.
Trying to import medicines in 2021
On October 18, 2021, Sangha drove a rental car with a Florida license plate across the US-Canada border in Surrey. She showed her Canadian passport and told officers she had flown to Washington to attend her aunt’s funeral. The CBSA officer asked her to stop to search her car, but she sped away.Another border officer chased her and honked at her, eventually forcing her to slow down. Officers found duffel bags containing drugs, two iPhones and a deleted iPad.
Sangha made three similar trips to the United States that year in August, September and October. It is not known whether she imported drugs on those trips as well.
Who is Sukhvinder Kaur Sangha?
Sangha was born in Prince George. She is trained as a pharmacy technician and has worked in this role for some time. She then worked as a producer and broadcaster in Punjabi for ten years. She interviewed politicians, police officers, and celebrities as a host, was an active community member, and a vocal advocate against youth crime and drug abuse. Sangha, a single mother of three, is also taking care of her ailing 78-year-old mother.
The prosecutor stressed that if such crimes were not adequately punished, gangs would use individuals like Sangha with the promise that they would not receive long sentences if they were caught.
