Montreal police patrolling on bicycles have arrested a man who turned out to be one of the most wanted suspects in the U.S.
Katay-Khaophone Sychantha, also known as Kao, was stopped last Wednesday by officers doing a routine patrol of a Montreal cycle path, who suspected Sychantha and another man of drug possession.
According to a police statement, Sychantha tried to flee on foot, but was quickly apprehended. When asked for identification, Sychantha produced an American identification card. The officers suspected the card was fake and took him into custody for further questioning.
Police fingerprinted Sychantha and noticed he had a missing fingertip on his right hand. When they ran the prints through their database, they learned the Laos-born man they had in their custody was the suspected ring leader in a large-scale drug and weapons smuggling operation.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wanted Sychantha as the suspected leader of an organization that supplied ecstasy pills and marijuana to distributors in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, Georgia and New York.
He was also wanted by the Ontario Provincial Police for several drug trafficking offences.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security considered him one of their most wanted, and offered a US$25,000 reward for his capture.
The wanted poster for Sychantha on the ICE website warned that Sychantha had a history of violence, had allegedly made threats against several law enforcement officials, and should be considered armed and dangerous.
It said that Sychantha was first indicted in Michigan in 2005 for conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. He evaded capture, they wrote, and continued to supervise a drug-smuggling organization based in Windsor.
He was indicted again in 2013 and was last seen in the town of Lakeshore, Ont., 40 kilometres from the U.S. border near Detroit.
