A convicted drug dealer has been ordered to pay $35,000 in restitution to a Burnaby home owner whose rental apartment was used to process deadly drugs, including fentanyl, heroin and cocaine.
Scott Pipping, 36, was convicted in May on 10 counts of drug trafficking, possession for the purpose of trafficking, producing a controlled substance and firearm offences in connection with a dial-a-dope operation busted in March 2016 after a yearlong investigation by Delta police.
Last Friday (June 29), Pipping was handed a 15-year jail term and ordered to pay $35,000 to Mani Ranjbar whose Prenter Street apartment was used as a clandestine drug lab in the operation.
Pipping’s co-accused, Adam Summers, 28, was sentenced the same day to five years in jail.
Pipping was understood to be Summers’ boss in the scheme, according to earlier court documents.
Ranjbar’s apartment at 6893 Prenter St. was one of three homes searched in March 2016 in connection with the drug bust.
The other two were in Richmond and Surrey.
According to a law suit launched by Ranjbar, the local landlord had rented out the suite to a Stephen Takeshi Tajiri.
Ranjbar, a business man and SFU computer science PhD candidate, alleges Tajiri then gave the drug dealers access to the suite.
Ranjbar said he first found out about the clandestine drug lab three days after police executed their search warrant on his rental unit.
Ranjbar is suing Tajiri, Pipping, Summers and an unnamed woman for the destruction of appliances and fixtures in the apartment and for the contamination of the suite with fentanyl and other toxic chemicals.
He said the contamination had made the apartment “a serious threat to life” and that he had had to pay for multiple inspections to make sure the place was properly decontaminated of toxic drugs.
Pipping and Summers face another civil suit from the province’s director of civil forfeiture, who is going after a car owned by Summers and nearly $1.5 million in alleged drug money seized from the Burnaby, Richmond and Surrey residences.
None of the allegations made in the law suits have been proven in court.
This article has been corrected. The original version stated Pipping had been sentenced to five years in jail, while Summers was handed an 18-month sentence. Pipping was, in fact sentenced to 15 years in jail and Summers was handed a five-year sentence.
