No one charged with producing fentanyl at ‘largest superlab’ in Canadian history

PENTICTON — Nearly two years after the RCMP announced it had dismantled the largest fentanyl and methamphetamine lab in Canadian history, no one has been charged with producing, manufacturing, or distributing fentanyl from there and it remains unclear if anyone ever will.On October 31, 2024, the RCMP put on — by its standards — a fairly grandiose press conference at divisional headquarters in Surrey announcing it had taken down what Assistant Commissioner David Teboul called the “largest and most sophisticated illicit fentanyl and meth facility ever found in Canada.”.Police said they seized 54 kilograms of finished fentanyl, 390 kilograms of methamphetamine, 35 kilograms of cocaine, 15 kilograms of MDMA and six kilograms of cannabis, plus tonnes of precursor chemicals, 89 firearms, explosives, silencers, high-capacity magazines, body armour and $500,000 in cash.Teboul said the finished fentanyl and precursors together could have amounted to more than 95 million potentially lethal doses and denied a transnational crime group an estimated $485 million in profit. “This enforcement action potentially saved over 95 million lives,” he said at the Surrey briefing.Gaganpreet Singh Randhawa, a 32-year-old Surrey man, was named as the sole suspect following the highly publicized RCMP announcement. He remains the only person charged in connection with the investigation.On Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to charges arising from a different aspect of the investigation: attempting to export 310 kilograms of methamphetamine to the Philippines. According to an agreed statement of facts read in BC Supreme Court, Randhawa admitted making several trips to a Richmond shipping company, Manila Cargo Express, between September and October 2024 with boxes containing methamphetamine destined for the Philippines. Police intercepted 19 boxes before they left Canada, while another 12 boxes were transported to the shipping company on Oct. 11, 16 and 22.Randhawa also pleaded guilty to possessing methamphetamine, fentanyl, carfentanil, cocaine and MDMA for the purpose of trafficking, as well as firearms-related offences. The agreed statement of facts, however, made no mention of the Falkland superlab itself.Last summer, Western Standard was one of very few media outlets with a reporter present at Randhawa’s judicial interim release hearing in BC Supreme Court on July 3 and July 4, 2025.Justice Andrew Majawa denied bail on the Friday afternoon..A Criminal Code s. 517 publication ban, imposed after the case was moved up from provincial court in June 2025, covered the evidence and the reasons..Details from that hearing can now be reported. Despite rampant speculation, including in US media, neither the RCMP nor federal prosecutors identified any of the fentanyl produced at Falkland as headed for the United States. That is a significant detail beyond the case itself because, not long after the October 2024 announcement, the US president claimed Canadian-origin fentanyl was killing Americans on a mass scale and used that claim to demand billions in Canadian border spending and to levy punitive tariffs on Canadian goods..In a July 10 interview with Ambassador Pete Hoekstra in Vancouver on July 10, the Western Standard put that gap to the ambassador: the president’s death-toll claims against the absence of major interdictions of Canadian-origin fentanyl at the US border. .Asked whether the president was mistaken about the scale or direction of those flows, Hoekstra said, “What do you think I’m going to say to them? Yeah, the president was... no.”.In court this week, Randhawa did admit possessing fentanyl and carfentanil at a Surrey stash house and in his vehicle, along with methamphetamine, cocaine and MDMA, and a prohibited Glock while under a lifetime firearms ban. Those are possession and weapons counts. They have no direct relevance to the production case on the factory Teboul put on television nearly two years ago.Zheng told the court the federal serious and organized crime section targeted Randhawa in an investigation that began in April 2024. On his arrest, police searched Manila Cargo Express on No. 5 Rd. in Richmond, a U-Haul locker he rented on 56th Ave. in Surrey, a stash house on 127A St. in Surrey, his apartment at 10603 148th St. and his Kia Sorento. Kahlon said Thursday the Surrey sites were residential and the Richmond sites were commercial buildings.“Mr. Randhawa admits that between September 23, 2024, and October 23, 2024, he attempted to export 310 kilograms of methamphetamine (31 boxes containing 10 kilograms of methamphetamine each) to the Philippines,” Zheng said. Officers watched him move 12 of those boxes — four a day — from the stash site to Manila Cargo on October 11, 16 and 22. Police intercepted another 19 boxes already booked for the Philippines that had not yet left Canada.He said the word “guilty” four times in a 20-minute appearance. Murray put sentencing into the new year so he could stay in pretrial custody and see family over the holidays.The court record of that plea never names Falkland, Hoath Rd., the precursor tonnage or the 54 kilograms of finished fentanyl..Randhawa’s October 25, 2024 arrest, at the time, was linked to the Falkland superlab.Sources later told Postmedia the lab had been set up by the Wolfpack gang alliance and had ties to James Riach, a gangster serving a life sentence in the Philippines for drug trafficking. Those links have not been tested in the criminal court file that closed Wednesday on the export counts.The property itself is still in a separate fight. .BC’s director of civil forfeiture sued in early 2025 to take 5011 Hoath Rd., a 66-hectare Falkland acreage assessed at under $1 million, from Abbotsford electrician Michael Driehuyzen. The claim says the land was used from at least January 2024 to produce, store, and process controlled substances, and that Driehuyzen knew or ought to have known how it was being used. He says he was only the landlord and did not take part in anything unlawful done by a tenant. Randhawa is named as a defendant in that lawsuit and has not filed a defence.Randhawa had a prior drug conviction. In 2017 he pleaded guilty in Burnaby to possessing cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine for the purpose of trafficking in a dial-a-dope case. He told that court he had tried to leave the trade and been threatened. He received a short intermittent jail term and a firearms prohibition.By May 2025 — seven months after the raid — he was still the only person awaiting trial. RCMP Cpl. Arash Seyed — then speaking for the federal unit on the file — told the Globe and Mail that charging the first person in a transnational organized-crime case often makes the rest harder. “The moment you charge the first person it’s unlikely you’re gonna get charges on the others,” he said..No further accused have been named since. Police have not identified a cook. They have not said whether the people who built the Falkland site have been charged elsewhere or left the country. They have not said whether the precursor pipeline is a closed file. They have not said whether the 54 kilograms of finished fentanyl seized on Hoath Rd. will ever be attached to a production count in open court.Western Standard asked RCMP Federal Policing Pacific Region on Thursday whether anyone has been charged with production, manufacture or operation of that laboratory, including the fentanyl seized on the property, and whether that portion of the file still sits with investigators or with Crown.“Aspects of the investigation are still ongoing,” Cpl. Parmbir Kahlon wrote. “To ensure the integrity of any future court proceedings and given the investigation remains ongoing, we are unable to provide any further details.”It was the same sentence he had sent hours earlier, when asked whether the fentanyl production case remains active and whether further charges are expected.Sentencing on the meth-export and related possession and firearms counts is scheduled after the holidays.The date for any production case related to the high-profile Falkland superlab the RCMP celebrated as a milestone success — if there is one — remains entirely unclear.

No one charged with producing fentanyl at ‘largest superlab’ in Canadian history

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