Vancouver taxi driver used his cab to make cocaine deliveries: judge

It was a Thursday night in the summer of 2021 and a man was in the backseat of a taxi going through downtown Vancouver on a supposedly "normal" ride.

Only that passenger was found by police to be carrying 211 grams of cocaine in his backpack and the taxi driver had more than $1,600 in cash in his wallet and shirt pocket.

This week, a B.C. Supreme Court judge found the driver, MD Rafiqul Islam, guilty of one count of possession for the purpose of trafficking. 

Justice Heather MacNaughton further found that Islam was knowingly involved in a "dial-a-dope" trafficking operation and actively facilitated it by driving two men to and from their drug deliveries. 

She dismissed Islam's arguments that he had no knowledge of any drug trafficking and that the activities in his taxi were "normal."

"His evidence is patently excusatory, stretches credulity, and has an obvious air of fabrication. I find that the general thread of Mr. Islam's evidence does not accord with common sense or human experience," MacNaughton said in her decision.

The court decision reveals details of a nearly two-week police surveillance operation, condos that were used to stash fentanyl, meth and hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a "hierarchical relationship" between the taxi driver and the two men.

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) began investigating Islam after getting a tip from a confidential informer that a taxi was being used to distribute drugs around the Lower Mainland, according to the decision.

Islam, who said he had been a taxi driver for nearly 30 years, was criminally charged along with Jordan Trembley and Charles Flynn who were found to be operating a drug trafficking network. Flynn was the passenger riding with Islam when they were busted with cocaine.

Islam insisted the two men were just regular repeat customers of his taxi. But Justice MacNaughton found Islam "had an entwined and involved working relationship with these men that went beyond that of an ordinary private taxi client and driver."

Islam had several numbers on his phone to reach Trembley and Flynn, some that he saved in his contacts as "WORK" and "WORK 2," according to the decision.

MacNaughton pointed to text messages that she said showed that Trembley and Flynn exerted control over Islam. He called the men "boss" on multiple occasions. 

During another exchange, Islam apologized for missing work because he had a vaccine appointment to which one of the men replied, "Sorry doesn't fix the fact that I'm f****** busy and need you."

Police surveillance showed that Islam would regularly drop off and pick up Trembley and Flynn from two condo buildings. The judge found that two units in those buildings were the men's "stash houses."