Ontario realtor claims he was duped into bringing opium from India

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After an Ontario real estate agent returning from a trip to India was caught with nearly 14 kilos of opium at Toronto’s Pearson airport, he said he was duped by a family friend who had asked him to bring Indian sweets back to Canada.

Throughout his trial, Nitish Verma insisted he had no idea four boxes wrapped in packing tape that he put in his luggage contained anything other than confections, but a jury didn’t buy it. Now, judges at Ontario’s appeal court have rejected his plea for another chance to make his case.

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In the summer of 2019, Verma returned to India for a short visit.

He said he went for a family meeting to help chose a husband for his sister in an arranged marriage. They were interviewing potential grooms. The meeting was planned at short notice because it was hard to find a time when everyone could be there, including his sister, who was a bank executive in Australia.

He flew out from Toronto Pearson International Airport on July 31, 2019.

Verma was 30 at the time. He had immigrated from India in 2010 and enrolled at Seneca College, where he was involved in student government and graduated in 2013 with a diploma in computer networking. He later got his real estate licence and was working as a realtor in Brampton, Ont., west of Toronto.

Verma was married in 2022 in India, after his arrest but before his conviction, court heard; his wife, a university professor, stayed in India while he planned to sponsor her to join him in Canada.

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On Aug. 3, 2019, shortly before his return flight to Toronto, he was asked by a family friend in Canada — someone so close he called him uncle — if he could bring some sweets back to Canada for him. Verma said he would and met relatives of his “uncle” at the airport in Delhi, where Verma was given boxes of sweets and other gifts to take.

When Verma landed at Pearson airport on Aug. 4, 2019, Canada Border Services Agency officers looked at his two large suitcases, a carry-on bag, and a satchel and thought it was a lot for a short trip. He was sent for a secondary inspection. Officers said he showed no other suspicious signs.

When asked about the boxes in his cases, he said they were “Indian sweets.” When an officer cut into one and shredded paper poked out, he said “those are not sweets” in apparent surprise. When a box was opened, there was a black tar-like substance wrapped in plastic.

“They told me it was sweets,” he said at the customs check, court heard. When asked who told him that, he said his uncle and gave police his phone number and asked to call him. There was no answer. Verma said he did not know the boxes contained anything other than sweets. Border agents also found two small baggies of opium, one in a shirt pocket and one in a fanny pack.

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A test showed it to be opium and Verma was arrested. The opium weighed almost 14 kilograms and was valued in a range from $294,316 to $936,460 depending on whether it was sold wholesale or retail.

At his trial in 2023 on a charge of importing opium, there was no dispute that drugs were in his luggage; the issue for the jury was did he know what he was doing or was he duped?

An RCMP officer testified that when Verma was asked about the drugs, the accused said he was scared, that if the guy found out he would die. The RCMP also said that they asked Verma about the baggies of opium, and he said they were also from the same people. Prosecutors pointed to this as tantamount to a confession — suggesting it was evidence he had seen the baggies, which were transparent and obviously did not contain candy.

Police, however, did not record their interrogation, even though he was in custody at the time.

Verma also testified at his trial.

He insisted he had been tricked into putting the opium in his luggage under the guise of it being candy and gifts. He said the shirt and fanny pack where the baggies were found were among the gifts sent home with him. He said the RCMP did not ask him about the baggies.

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They told me it was sweets

There was no evidence Verma had any connections to criminal or drug distribution organizations and he had no previous criminal record.

The jury didn’t believe Verma.

At his sentencing, letters of support were given to the judge from family, friends and co-workers. They described his hardworking nature and volunteer work at a local temple, soup kitchen, and for the Liberal party during the 2021 federal election.

Ontario Superior Court Judge Lucille Shaw gave him a seven-year sentence. Because he is not a Canadian citizen, he will be slated for deportation after completing his sentence.

“It strikes me as tragic that someone who showed so much promise and had so much support could commit a criminal offence with devastating consequences. Those devastating consequences are not just for the victims who seek and use drugs but also the consequence he now faces,” Shaw said at his sentencing.

“Mr. Verma had a bright and promising future…. His wife is also a victim as she planned to move to Canada and start a family with him. That plan is forever altered as the immigration consequences of his actions will result in his deportation once his sentence is served.”

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Verma appealed his conviction, with his lawyers complaining about the trial judge’s instructions to the jury on how to handle disputes over his statements made at the airport.

At the Court of Appeal for Ontario, a panel of three judges found that while the trial judge’s jury instruction was not perfect, it was adequate. Verma’s appeal was denied, in a decision published Monday.

“Mr. Verma is very disappointed in the outcome of his appeal,” said his lawyer, Mark Halfyard, a Toronto-based appeal specialist.

“Mr. Verma is adamant that he provided no such statement to the police and that this statement was material to the jury in finding him guilty. He is currently weighing his legal options about whether to pursue a further appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada,” Halfyard said.

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | X: AD_Humphreys

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