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Accused ‘didn’t want the business’ unless it came with the post office, longtime variety store owner Cindy Johnstone testified the new owner told her
Published Jan 02, 2026 • Last updated 1 day ago • 6 minute read
Owen Sound courthouse. Photo by SCOTT DUNN /THE SUN TIMES/POSTMEDIA NETWORKArticle content
A Crown prosecutor in Owen Sound Friday said evidence will show that Chen Liu “exploited” his position as Hepworth’s postmaster to illegally import ketamine and illicit cigarettes two years ago.
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Liu, 43, of 4 Goldeneye Dr., East Gwillimbury, pleaded not guilty to six charges on the first day of his trial before Ontario Court Justice Julia Morneau. Two Mandarin language interpreters took turns translating the proceedings for Liu.
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He pleaded not guilty to unlawfully importing to Canada ketamine on Dec. 3 and again Dec. 4, 2023; possession of ketamine for the purpose of trafficking on Dec. 15, 2023; two counts of possession for sale of illicit tobacco Dec. 15, 2023, and on Dec. 11, 2023, unlawfully importing ketamine to Canada, all in South Bruce Peninsula.
Jacqueline Porter, Crown counsel with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, told the court in her opening statement that evidence will show Chen bought Cindy’s Variety in Hepworth in August 2022 and so became postmaster of the post office within.
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In the fall of 2023, “dozens” of international packages arrived at Hepworth Post Office addressed to “vacant” post office boxes and to people who were dead, had moved away or who didn’t exist, the Crown said she would show.
Ketamine, which is controlled under Schedule 1 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, is used in human and animal medicine as an anesthetic and as an illicit recreational drug.
Porter said the Canada Border Services Agency in December 2023 opened two packages addressed to vacant post office boxes in Hepworth and each contained three kilograms of ketamine. These allegations relate to the first three charges, Porter said.
There were packages addressed to one man who “doesn’t appear to exist,” Porter said. Another was addressed to a women, who will testify during this trial that she moved away and closed her post office box long before the package with her name was posted, the Crown said.
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Police executed a “controlled delivery” of the packages to the post office on Dec. 13, 2023. Liu wasn’t there that day but the next day he arrived in a Sprinter van. Closed-circuit TV footage inside the store showed him moving the controlled packages, Porter said.
He scanned them as “carded,” meaning they were left in the post office for the recipients to pick them up, then video shows Liu photographing two other boxes containing “illicit cigarettes,” Porter said.
She said Liu slept in the variety store overnight on Dec. 14 and, on Dec. 15, the in-store video showed him loading the two controlled delivery parcels into the Sprinter van and placing the two boxes of illicit cigarettes in the front seat, Porter said.
Police followed Liu who drove the van to various locations and the parcels stayed in the van.
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Porter said police pulled over Liu and arrested him. The two ketamine packages remained unopened inside. The cigarette packages inside the van relate to counts four and five, she said.
After Liu’s arrest, the CBSA intercepted 12 packages posted prior to his arrest, Porter said. One package contained ketamine, which relates to the sixth charge, she said. The other 11 packages contained cigarettes for which Liu was not charged, the Crown said.
Porter told Justice Morneau that most of the evidence has been admitted and is contained in six statements of agreed facts.
Cynthia Johnstone and Murray Blue, who ran the variety store and post office for more than 20 years before selling to Liu, each testified separately in court Friday.
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Both said they suggested to Liu that if he wanted the store to be a lot more profitable, he should eliminate the post office and put fridges for beer in where the post office boxes sat. Store sales doubled in the first year after the store started selling alcohol, Johnstone testified she told him.
“But he seemed adamant he wanted to keep the post office there,” she testified. She told Porter she kept emphasizing how much more money he could make than the monthly fee and post office sales amounted to, by just selling alcohol in that space, particularly since the store didn’t sell cold beer.
She testified Chen told her if he couldn’t get the Canada Post outlet he “didn’t want the business.” She testified the store needed a lot of work because it was an old building. It needed new flooring and windows, which was apparent, she said. “He waived inspection of the building. He didn’t want it done,” Johnstone testified.
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She testified she had the water tested and septic system inspected but he waived requirements for those in the real estate deal. “He didn’t care about those,” she testified.
The conditions he required were that he maintain the tobacco, liquor, Canada Post and lottery licences, and that the store continue to be called Cindy’s Variety, after Johnstone.
She recalled that Liu was in the import/export business but couldn’t recall how she knew. She said she and her husband agreed to stay on for a month after the sale to show him how to run the business but he only came in a couple of times a week in the first few weeks.
Defence lawyer Donna Pledge in cross-examination confirmed with Johnstone that the inclusion of tobacco, alcohol, Canada Post and lottery licences were sale agreement conditions, not part of conversations she had with him.
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The store had a liquor licence when sold to Liu, Johnstone agreed, but added she had to extend them for five days to allow Chen more time to gather money for the purchase, but that it was up to him to deal with getting licences for himself.
The water/septic conditions were waived in the real estate transaction process, Johnstone confirmed, not verbally to her in a conversation.
Pledge inquired about the Canada Post fee paid monthly and Johnstone thought it might have been $2,000. Johnstone testified that the post office didn’t receive many international parcels and that she guessed the number picked up around Christmastime.
Her husband, Murray Blue, testified the post office would get four to six international parcels a month overall, but closer to Christmas there were more to the point they almost ran out of room for them.
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He recommended to Liu that he replace the post office for more alcohol sales, and quoted him replying, “No. No. No. I want post office.”
Blue testified he told Liu that the only way to make money at the store was to work most of the hours himself. But he said Liu “wasn’t around a lot to be trained,” and so he and his wife only stayed for two weeks instead of the one month they’d said they would.
Blue testified Liu came into the store an hour after opening and left early, eventually coming in a couple of times a week, staff told him. He saw him spend a lot of time on his phone, he testified.
The Crown went over in detail post office procedures for handling mail and incompletely addressed parcels, and how post office boxes were commonly declared vacant after people left but didn’t turn in their keys.
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Mail was kept in areas inaccessible to the public but could be accessed by entering the employee entrance at the back, where mail was sorted and filed, both testified.
Johnstone testified they never received a package for someone who didn’t have a post office box or had closed their post office box, and they never stored packages off-site.
Given people’s names, Johnstone and Blue testified they didn’t recognize a few names, knew one was of someone who’d moved and another who’d died. Neither person she could identify received lots of international packages, Johnstone testified. Her husband said the deceased person only ever received domestic mail.
Other dates set aside to continue the trial are Jan. 7, 13 and April 9 in courtroom 101 at 10 a.m.
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