Drug smuggler busted by GPS error [GPS routed him into Canada]

Sun Media ^ | 2010-02-25 | Neil Bowen

[Clive]

SARNIA, Ont. -- A Texas man driving to New York with $33,000 worth of marijuana was sentenced to two years in jail after his GPS directed him over the border and into Canada.

Jesus Fontanez-Medina, 54, pleaded guilty in Sarnia court Tuesday to importing marijuana.

He was driving a 1999 Blazer with Massachusetts licence plates on Feb. 7 when he entered Canada with a passenger at 5 p.m.

Federal prosecutor Michael Robb said outside the courtroom that a GPS navigational system in the vehicle apparently led him to the border.

The passenger, charged with a similar offence, is still before the courts.

A secondary inspection revealed 3.3 kilograms of marijuana in a box in the vehicle's rear end. The packages were wrapped in bleach-soaked material to prevent drug-sniffing dogs from detecting the marijuana, Robb said.

Through a Spanish interpreter, Fontanez-Medina asked Justice Mark Hornblower to treat him well.

"People intent on importing substances are not welcome here, and when detected will be dealt with severely," Hornblower replied.

A lack of background information about Fontanez-Medina, who reportedly has a criminal record in the U.S., didn't change the need for a two-year prison sentence, the judge said.

Two years was a recommended joint submission by Robb and defence lawyer David Stoesser.

"In due course, he will be deported," Stoesser said.

The federal jail system can consider sending Fontanez-Medina home to serve the sentence.

He will be under a lifetime weapons ban in Canada and must provide local police with a DNA sample.

[Huebolt]

Too true. Set the GPS to find the “shortest route” and you will be led into the vast back road empire of highways in hiding. I once was vectored through several very small neighborhoods...but it was the shortest way

[fanfan]

Thanks for the ping, Clive.