Ecstasy Kingpin Desire to Sell Drugs Fueled by Gambling Addiction

Justice Frances Kiteley has sentenced ecstasy kingpin Sean Erez to 8 years behind bars after trying to deal in 4.5 kilos of cocaine, for which he was shot in an attempted robbery at a posh Toronto hotel.

Justice Frances Kiteley said Erez, who was paroled 11 months before the botched drug-deal in July 2006, will be given three years' credit for the year he spent in the Don Jail, which a defence lawyer described as a health-damaging "cesspool of filth", the Canadian press was reporting.

"This case is a farce. This case is a farce," complained Erez, who was shot three times at the Harbour Castle Hotel by bandits who attempted to rob him of his cocaine, which had a street value of about $1 million.

The judge said it was Erez's gambling addiction and huge debts to bookies which led him to sell ecstasy. 

Erez once owed $500,000 to bookies, which he paid off by masterminding an enormous ecstasy ring, Kiteley said.

In the early 1990s, Erez was sentenced to 10 years in prison for ochestrating the then-largest Ecstasy smuggling ring.

American authorities said it smuggled a million pills from Amsterdam to New York -- using teenaged Hassidic students as couriers.

Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com