FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Docket #: 2:10-CR-183 JAM

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Kyle Deryk Legere, 27, of Surrey, British Colombia, Canada, was sentenced today by United States District Judge John A. Mendez to nine years and nine months in prison for conspiring to distribute MDMA, also known as Ecstacy, United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced.

According to court records, Legere organized and managed a drug and money transportation business. His business, essentially a black-market operation styled after DHL or UPS, serviced the needs of several illegal drug trafficking organizations in both the United States and Canada. Between 2004 and 2010, Legere and his couriers were hired to move huge amounts of narcotics and money into and out of the United States. In one month in 2008 alone, Legere's organization moved over 600,000 MDMA pills into the United States. Legere paid his couriers as much as $20,000 per trip and used encrypted communications devices to direct the movements of the people working for him. The encrypted data transmitted by these devices was stored on off-shore servers in the Territory of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean.

            Judge Mendez commented at sentencing that this was an “incredibly serious offense” that caused “untold amounts of harm in the United States” and, consequently, “requires a serious sentence.” Judge Mendez noted that Mr. Legere was “the kingpin” when it came to the independent transportation operation, and the drug trafficking groups that hired Legere’s organization could not have operated across the U.S.-Canadian border without him.

This case was the product of an investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Fremont Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney Michael M. Beckwith prosecuted the case.

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