A 58-year-old Fall City man was convicted in Los Angeles federal court of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and conspiracy to export it, capping a case that traces back to a sprawling 2019 indictment targeting a Vancouver-based drug trafficking organization. David Joner was found guilty on both counts, tying him directly to a cross-border pipeline that moved cocaine and party drugs between the Pacific Northwest, Los Angeles and Canada.
Joner was found guilty of one count of conspiracy with intent to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine, and one count of conspiracy to export cocaine, according to MyNewsLA.com. He was one of 16 defendants indicted by a federal grand jury back in 2019, part of an investigation into an organization authorities say was based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and run by Tenny Guon Lim, a convicted Canadian drug trafficker known on the street as “The Goat” and “Max Power.”
How the Cocaine-for-MDMA Pipeline Worked
Prosecutors described a trafficking operation that exchanged large amounts of cocaine obtained in Mexico for ecstasy in the Los Angeles area, with the drugs then distributed throughout North America. The organization sent multikilogram quantities of MDMA, also known as ecstasy or molly, to the United States in exchange for cocaine that U.S.-based associates obtained in Mexico, the outlet's reporting states.
Both drugs moved between Los Angeles and Canada either directly or through Washington state, with Washington-based associates helping transport the loads, prosecutors said. Joner worked for the organization's Washington cell, and according to court papers cited in the report, he personally brought numerous multikilogram-sized loads of cocaine from the Los Angeles area up to Canada.
A Case Years in the Making
The scale of the organization first came into public view in 2019, when the FBI and Los Angeles police investigated what they described as a large Vancouver-based drug trafficking network. Earlier reporting on the Washington side of the case, from HeraldNet, described one courier, Jeff Allyn Walker, telling investigators he had made the Los Angeles-to-Washington trip about 30 times. That same account noted bank records showed Joner depositing thousands of dollars in cash at a time between September 2016 and May 2018.
The dossier of court records also shows some disagreement over exactly how many people were swept up in the case. MyNewsLA reports Joner was one of 16 defendants indicted in 2019, while the HeraldNet account from that period described federal grand juries indicting five named defendants along with 25 others. Neither report resolves the discrepancy, and the case file reviewed for this story does not clarify which count is accurate.
Other Defendants Already Sentenced
Joner's conviction adds to a growing list of resolved cases tied to the same organization. Seven defendants in the case have been convicted, and nine others face prosecution, according to the FBI's accounting. Two Washington couriers connected to the ring, Amy Kim Hartlmueller-Torres and Walker, were sentenced to 2¾ years and 2½ years in prison respectively, per HeraldNet's follow-up coverage.
North of the border, alleged ringleader Tenny Guon Lim was sentenced to eight years in prison in Canada after pleading guilty to possession of heroin for the purpose of trafficking, according to Vancouver Is Awesome. Authorities have said Lim remains pending extradition to the United States. A co-accused, Vincent Yen Tek Chiu of Vancouver, has already been sentenced to 14.5 years in a U.S. prison, the same outlet reported.
No sentencing date has been reported yet for Joner, and the case file does not indicate when he is expected to be sentenced or what penalties he may face on the two federal counts.
