A North Vancouver drug dealer who used a profile on a dating website to connect with customers was sentenced to 14 months in jail after pleading guilty to two drug offences in provincial court.
Judge Joanne Challenger handed the sentence to Ryan Barry Frank Vena, 35, after Vena recently pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine and possessing cocaine and heroin for the purpose of trafficking in North Vancouver provincial court.
Police first got wind of a Lower Lonsdale dial-a-dope operation after a tipster flagged a dating profile that appeared to be cover for a drug dealer, according to court documents.
Undercover officers investigated the site, eventually buying crack cocaine from another North Vancouver man, a cousin of Vena and the self-proclaimed boss of the operation, according to court documents.
The alleged crack kingpin showed up at one rendezvous driving a Dodge Dakota, which was registered to Vena.
Vena was put under surveillance and was stopped by police in his truck after officers witnessed him selling crack out of the vehicle.
Officers found three cellphones in his truck including a continuously ringing BlackBerry that matched the number police had been using to arrange drug deals, according to the judge’s written decision.
Vena was carrying $1,035 cash and 1.2 grams of fentanyl, heroin and cocaine divided into 13 flaps, according to the judge. He also had 10.1 grams of cocaine and 3.2 grams of crack with an estimated street value of $2,000 on him at the time police stopped him.
A police search of his basement suite under warrant yielded three bags of cash totalling $3,890, ammunition for a nine-millimetre handgun and five grams of different compounds commonly sold as ecstasy, according to court documents. The judge noted Vena has a lengthy criminal record for theft, robbery and drug trafficking.
Challenger noted when he was 18, Vena was the victim of an attack in which he was beaten on the head with a golf club, stabbed in the torso, and had one of his hands nearly severed with a machete. His hand was reattached.
Vena had been sober for five years and was working on a college degree when he started taking narcotics to cope with a back injury, according to court documents.
He checked into a recovery program in 2016 and weaned himself off methadone.
“By all accounts, he is dedicated to his recovery,” Challenger stated.
Vena also volunteers with the Easy Does It Club, which aims to help drug users overcome addiction.
“He has also been instrumental in setting up an outreach initiative called Street Saviours,” which sends people trained to administer Narcan to the Downtown Eastside, according to the court documents.
While Vena was not in charge of the sophisticated dial-a-dope operation, he was not acting “merely as a runner,” Challenger wrote, noting Vena was making enough money to: “support himself and his drug habit, pay his rent, and operate a vehicle.”
Advertising on social media also made it “an even more insidious offence,” the judge wrote. The presence of fentanyl also weighed in Challenger’s decision, although she noted Vena may not have known the drugs he was selling contained the synthetic opioid.
“Many of those who are dying from overdoses are suburban recreational users who are getting easy access to these substances as a result of dial-dope-operations,” Challenger wrote.
Isaac Christopher Yacoback, 38, the man police allege was the boss of the dial-a-dope operation, faces three charges of drug trafficking. His case is set for trial next year in B.C. Supreme Court.
