Photo: Realtor.ca

The interior of the Neave Court facility that the BC government is trying to seize.

The provincial government is seeking to seize two Kelowna properties it says were bought with drug-trafficking funds.

In a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday in BC Supreme Court, BC’s director of civil forfeiture claims All Out Customs & Collision Ltd. of Kelowna’s Neave Court is a “front company or entity and is not conducting any legitimate business.”

This comes after police raided the business last December and allegedly found cocaine, MDMA, psilocybin mushrooms and a large amount of cannabis, according to the civil forfeiture lawsuit.

The lawsuit names Richard and Tania Madore as the “principals and operational minds” of All Out Customs. In addition to the Neave Court property, the provincial government is also seeking the seizure of Madore’s five-acre property on Miller Road, where the couple lives.

BC Assessment lists the value of the Southeast Kelowna home at more than $2 million, and the couple has owned it since 2004. Meanwhile, All Out Customs has owned the Neave Court property since 2010, and BC Assessment lists All Out Customs’ unit in the industrial building at $913,000.

But while the province is actively trying to foreclose on the Neave Court property, it was put up for sale two weeks ago with an asking price of $869,000.

The police investigation into alleged drug trafficking in Kelowna began in February 2023, according to the seizure lawsuit.

The province says Richard Madore was a “target of investigation” by police and he and other targets were seen visiting the Neave Court property several times in September and November 2023 for “short-term encounters and transporting luggage between vehicles, according to drug trafficking. .”

When police executed a search warrant on the property on December 13, 2023, officers allegedly found 8.2 kilograms of cannabis, more than three kilograms of cannabis oil, 64.5 grams of cocaine, 28.6 grams of MDMA, 282 grams of psilocybin mushrooms along with $17,000 in cash bundled in a Ziploc bag.

The province notes that the Madores were not licensed to sell or distribute cannabis.

Richard Madore was arrested at the time for possession for the purpose of human trafficking, but according to online court records, he has not been criminally charged at this time.

It is not the first time he is accused of drug trafficking. According to one 2012 BC Court of Appeal Decisionpolice in 2006 believed Madore was a “high-level marijuana trafficker.”

Officers found Madore and another man on Nov. 8, 2006, on a logging road near Kelowna with $100,000 in cash and about 20 kg of cannabis. While Madore was first convicted of possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, the appeals court reduced the conviction to mere possession because the Crown failed to prove what the buyer was and who the seller was.

As a result, his two-year suspended sentence was reduced to a $2,200 fine.

But if BC’s Office of Civil Forfeiture is successful in its latest action against the Madores, the new charges could end up being much more expensive. The lawsuit alleges that the Neave and Miller properties were not only purchased with drug proceeds, but that the properties were used as tools in money laundering.

The Madores have not filed a formal response to the civil forfeiture action. None of the claims made in the civil forfeiture process have been tested in court.