Cocaine, fentanyl found in designer bag; owner faces up to eight years in prison

With over a pound of illegal drugs in his Louis Vuitton designer bag, Kyle Haman was in the passenger seat of a stolen Range Rover — being driven by an armed meth dealer on probation — when Norman Wells RCMP busted the dangerous duo.

The now 24-year-old Alberta man was on probation for a previous crime — and bail for more recent charges — in March 2025, when police received several reports of two suspicious individuals “acting strangely in a luxury vehicle” on the winter road between Norman Wells and Fort Good Hope.

Seized in total: 247 grams of MDMA (Molly); 194 grams of cocaine (including a quantity of crack) and 13 grams of a mixture of fentanyl, heroin, benzodiazepines and caffeine.

Haman is looking at up to eight years in prison, if Crown Prosecutor Brendan Green gets his way.

“Case law already refers to fentanyl dealers as merchants of death,” Green told a sentencing hearing Monday in NWT Territorial Court. “This was Mr. Haman’s purpose in travelling to the Northwest Territories, and then continuing on to one of our smaller and more and isolated communities.

“In the Crown’s view, the sentence that Mr. Haman receives today needs to communicate not only to him, but to other individuals, how seriously drug trafficking in general and trafficking fentanyl in particular is taken by the courts in the Northwest Territories.”

Green said Haman’s criminal record (16 entries), the variety and quantity illegal drugs, and the fact he was subject both to a release order and a probation order, calls for eight years on the fentanyl conviction, four years concurrent for the cocaine, and two years concurrent for the methamphetamine

Continued Green: “He has not taken responsibility for his actions. He has not shown any meaningful interest in rehabilitative programming. He’s had disciplinary issues on remand.”

Defence lawyer Baljinder Rattan said the Crown at trial provided no evidence that her client was an equal partner, or that he was going to share whatever the proceeds of the sales were going to be.

Given his at-times rocky upbringing — his mother introduced him to drugs and alcohol at an early age — and the fact his Indigenous Métis heritage by law calls for the consideration of a lesser sentence, a term of up to 4.5 years would be appropriate.

Said Rattan: “The defence takes no issue with the fact that cases of this nature demand deterrence and denunciation from the courts. That’s always been the case and it will always be the case. In the North, the courts have said many, many times that they don’t want drugs (and traffickers in the NWT), but they haven’t stopped coming.

Rattan said her client wasn’t the ringleader and, “he is still young enough, that he can become a contributing member of society.”

As for Haman’s accomplice, Devon Comfort was sentenced in March to six years’ imprisonment for the drugs and a pistol police found in the SUV’s engine compartment.

In March, Territorial Court Chief Judge Jeannie Scott accepted a joint recommendation to send the 31-year-old Alberta man to prison for six years, minus the 405 days of pre-sentencing credit for time he spent at the North Slave Correctional Complex.

On Monday, Judge Scott reserved her decision until September 21st.

At the time of the major drug bust in the Sahtu Region in 2025, RCMP Supt. Chris Romanchych stated:

“This seizure represents a significant disruption to the local drug trade in our remote communities and is an excellent example of police and the public working together to make the Northwest Territories safer.

“These drugs and guns may have gone on to inflict significant harm were it not for community members willing to share this vital information. I would like to sincerely thank those people who have taken ownership of the safety of their community.”