Robert Schellenberg is a Canadian citizen and grew up in Abbotsford, British Columbia.The Schellenberg smuggling incident is a case in which the People’s Republic of China prosecutors accused Canadian citizen Robert Lloyd Schellenberg of smuggling drugs in China.
Prosecutors alleged that in November 2014, Schellenberg attempted to smuggle methamphetamine with a net weight of just over 222 kg (489 lb) from Dalian to Australia. After discovering that his translator had informed the police, Schellenberg boarded a plane at Dalian Zhoushuizi International Airport and planned to flee to Thailand. Schellenberg was arrested by Chinese police when the plane had a stopover at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport. Schellenberg argued that he was framed by drug dealer Xu Qing and that he was an innocent tourist.
Who is Robert Schellenberg?
On November 20, 2018, the Dalian Intermediate People’s Court trialed and sentenced Schellenberg to 15 years in prison for drug smuggling, confiscation of 150,000 yuan in personal property, and deportation. Schellenberg appealed the verdict. On December 29 of the same year, the Liaoning Provincial High People’s Court retried him. During the trial, the prosecutor claimed that the initial trial that Schellenberg was an accessory criminal, and the crime did not succeed, so the punishment should be light was inappropriate.
Robert Schellenberg Early Life and Family
Robert Lloyd Schellenberg is a Canadian citizen and grew up in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Schellenberg had been jailed twice in Canada for a drug crime before being arrested in China. According to 2012 court documents, Schellenberg had previously suffered from a femoral injury at work, and began to use pain medications to relieve pain and became addicted. In February 2003, Schellenberg was sentenced to six months in prison for trafficking and transporting drugs.
In 2012, Schellenberg was sentenced to two years in prison for trafficking of cocaine and heroin, possession of cannabis resin, and methamphetamine. According to reports, his father stopped supporting him since he was in prison, but other relatives still supported him.
When Schellenberg was released from prison in 2013, his whereabouts were unknown, and information suggested that he went to work in an oil field in Alberta, Canada.According to Schellenberg’s aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, Schellenberg had traveled to Asia before going to China in 2014, and had contacted his father during a trip to Thailand, saying he was going to China.
Robert Schellenberg Wife
No any information is available about Robert Schellenberg wife and personal life on social media.
Robert Schellenberg Case
At the time of the retrial, the Dalian Intermediate People’s Court determined that “Kem”, “Steven”, “Mr. Zhou” and others were controlling an international drug trafficking organization. They had two accounts with Ping An Bank of China and China Merchants Bank to provide funds for drug trafficking.
In mid-October 2014, Kem hired a translator Xu Qing, who did not know of the drugs, to rent a warehouse in Dalian to purchase tires, and hid 20 tons of plastic pellets (including 222 packets of methamphetamine that Mr. Zhou and Jian Xiangrong took from Guangzhou) into the warehouse. Kem also informed Xu Qing that he would send a foreigner to help handle the goods.
On November 11, 2014, Xu Qing received the goods in Dalian. On November 19, Schellenberg arrived in Dalian under the designation of Kem, trying to hide the drug in a tire liner and smuggling it to Australia. Later, at the request of Schellenberg, Xu Qing brought him to buy related tools, including tires, liners, and used containers.
After checking the cargo and estimating the workload, Schellenberg postponed the shipping time from November to December. In the afternoon of November 27, Schellenberg contacted Mai Qingxiang by phone and asked him to find another warehouse to store drugs. Mai telephoned a warehouse shop in Dalian to find a warehouse. On November 29, Xu Qing suspected that the case was a drug crime and reported it to the police.
Upon finding out that the police were informed, Schellenberg planned to escape to Thailand from the hotel via Dalian Airport in the early morning of December 1, 2014. On the way, he discarded his old phone card and replaced it with a new one. When the plane had a stopover at Guangzhou Baiyun Airport at 1 pm on the same day, the police arrested Schellenberg. After inspection by the police, the net weight of 222 packets of methamphetamine carried by him was 222.035 kilograms (489.50 lb).In December 2014, Schellenberg was detained. In January 2015, the prosecution approved the arrest of him and he was taken to the Dalian Detention Center.
According to the Dalian Intermediate People’s Court, from mid-November to early December 2014, Mr. Zhou twice sent Jian to hire a car to transport the goods with drugs from Guangzhou to Hangzhou. Jian, “Stephen” and Mai participated in the transportation. On December 5, Mai was arrested by the police. The public security department seized 501 kilograms of methamphetamine.
During the period, Kem and others used the two controlled accounts to provide funds for Jian and Mai. By the time of the retrial, Kem, Stephen and Mr. Zhou had not been captured by the Chinese police, and Jian and Mai had been dealt with in another case. Jian was sentenced to life imprisonment for drug trafficking and illegal possession of drugs, and Mai was sentenced to death with 2-year reprieve for drug trafficking.
