Two Chilliwack residents have been fined and placed on probation for a year after they pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to smuggling a meth-lab-in-a-box across the Aldergrove border crossing last November.
Court documents posted online show Calum James Buchanan and Lola Crystal McKay were each given one year plus one day of “community custody” which requires them to report to a parole officer.
Buchanan was fined $3,900 and McKay was fined $1,900.
Both have promised to pay the fines in $100 monthly installments.
Buchanan was sentenced in February and McKay was sentenced in June after they each pleaded guilty to “possession with intent to manufacture/deliver methamphetamine” a charge that carries a potential maximum of 10 years plus a $20,000 fine.
A charge of bail jumping, laid against McKay after she failed to show up for a court hearing, was dropped after she returned to Washington State and pleaded guilty.
Both were arrested at the Aldergrove border crossing on Nov. 23 of last year after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers discovered chemicals inside a 1994 Pontiac Grand Am.
A U.S. customs officer became nauseated and vomited from the fumes in some plastic wrapped storage containers in the car.
The crossing was shut down in both directions for about an hour while a hazmat team removed the chemicals.
The sickened officer was transported to hospital and made a full recovery.