An American man was found guilty in U.S. District Court in Seattle on July 26 for crimes related to an attempt to smuggle almost 200 kilos of methamphetamine and fentanyl across the Strait of Juan de Fuca into Canada using a jet ski and an inflatable raft.
John Michael Sherwood, 67, was convicted of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, possession with intent to distribute controlled substances and international money laundering.
He was charged along with Erika Bocelle, who pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. Canadian Kevin Christopher Gartry is alleged to have been Sherwood's co-conspirator north of the border, though his extradition to the U.S. is still pending.
The trial brief from the U.S. Attorney's Office lays out the case against Sherwood and describes in detail the events leading up to his arrest. It alleges several orchestrated attempts to move drugs between Canada and the U.S. and details the many missteps Sherwood made that led to his conviction.
The brief also mentions an alleged plot to kill Bocelle, saying Sherwood believes she is cooperating with police against him. Sherwood is accused of soliciting another detainee to try to slip her a fatal dose of fentanyl.
Drugs wash ashore
The investigation began after a man and his family who were camping on the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula found a partially submerged duffle bag with 50 pounds of methamphetamine and two pounds of fentanyl in it. They turned this over to police, who then contacted state and federal investigators. This was on April 6, 2021.
Sometime over the next few days, another beachcomber found a partially deflated zodiac-style raft. Then on April 11, someone else discovered seven more duffle bags of methamphetamine beneath a Highway 112 bridge over the Twin River.
There were also reports of a U-Haul van going to and from the area where all these things were discovered. All told, the eight duffle bags contained roughly 400 pounds of methamphetamine.
The FBI got involved, tracking the duffle bags to two Washington Wal-Marts. They were found to have been purchased by Sherwood using a debit card tied to a business account he controlled.
Police obtained surveillance footage of Sherwood driving the U-Haul, as well as other evidence he was in the area including hotel records and cell phone location data. The U-Haul was originally rented in an area in California near Sacramento that a Homeland Security drug trafficking expert testified is a common staging area used for northbound drugs of Mexican origin.
On April 12, Sherwood fled Port Angeles in a pickup truck. Surveillance footage from a storage unit shows him loading bags into the pickup before he left. Bocelle had already left town in the U-Haul.
On April 13, it is alleged Sherwood got into a single-vehicle accident in the pickup in Livingston, Mont., and that he ditched a suitcase of drugs into a river, which was later found by police.
Escaping arrest for the time being, Sherwood was able to make a trip to Rhode Island and back in the middle of April, according to cell phone location data later obtained by police.
On his return he headed up to the Canadian border at Northport, near the towns of Rossland and Trail. By this time investigators had linked Sherwood to the Washington smuggling — on April 20 they executed a search warrant on the storage unit he had used in Port Angeles — and he was pulled over by police in Idaho on April 29.
Police found about 45 kilos of cannabis in two large duffle bags in his car, which Sherwood told investigators he had been paid $40,000 to drive to Boston. That cannabis was then linked to Gartry back in Canada.
The Canadian connection
According to the brief, Gartry was "a notorious Canadian cross-border drug smuggler," and was already under surveillance by the RCMP in early April 2021.
More connections between Gartry and Sherwood were discovered as the investigation unfolded.
Using cell phone data on Sherwood's phone, Police found he made several pervious trips in March to the Montana, Idaho and eastern Washington area, where it is suspected he was involved in drug smuggling.
During one of these trips border patrol agents pulled him over for acting suspiciously. They did not find any drugs in his possession, but later searched a motel room he had stayed at in the area and found handwritten notes in the trash referring to something having been "sent from (Kevin Gartry)", along with "100 kilo" and "Money Gram."
Bank and cell phone records show Gartry had corresponded with and wired money to Sherwood. Investigators also figured out the two men had at one time been incarcerated together.
While under RCMP surveillance in early April, Gartry was seen towing a boat trailer in Langford and in the Muir Creek Beach area.
And Sherwood had called Gartry from jail, having coded conversations with him on May 9 that seemed to refer to the jet ski smuggling attempt. Gartry asked Sherwood if the "timeshare on the beach" had come up with police.
Police had made that link, and eventually shipped Sherwood back to Washington to face drug trafficking charges. His eventual trial took six days and the jury deliberated for just three hours before reaching the guilty verdict.
According to a news release from the time of his arrest, Sherwood now faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years to life due to the amount of drugs involved. A sentencing date has been set for Oct. 29.
