John Philip Stirling - He's back

John Philip Stirling returned to Victoria.

Prolific B.C. drug smuggler John Philip Stirling, 68, was freed last year from the Sheridan prison near Salem, Ore., after arguing successfully for an early release for poor health. He had been sentenced to 40 months behind bars in 2020 after he was caught on a sailboat loaded with meth bound for Canada.

Stirling filed multiple lawsuits from jail. A handwritten lawsuit sought $30m from the Chinese government, who he blamed for the pandemic.

Stirling sued the United States Bureau of Prisons for allegedly not doing enough to protect him from Covid-19. He is alleging unconstitutional treatment at the hands of his jailers at the Sheridan prison, southwest of Portland. "Sheridan prison staff are endangering my life," Stirling cried in his handwritten complaint. "I am 66 years old with diabetis [sic]," Stirling wrote.

"I should be released as death, either mentally or by Corona-19, is inevitable under the present situation."

John Philip Stirling was busted again after authorities found 196 gallons of liquid meth on his boat off the coast of Oregon. He was arrested after his sailing vessel was discovered traveling north near Newport. The 65-year-old refused to cooperate after U.S. Coast Guard officials boarded his vessel. They found 28 seven-gallon jugs of liquid meth on board. Sterling has a history of arrests stretching back more than 30 years from B.C. to the waters off South America. In 1989, he was convicted in a cocaine smuggling and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Stirling aboard the 'Western Wind'

In 2001, his boat, the Western Wind, was stopped by US authorities in the Strait of Juan de Fuca with 2.5 tonnes of cocaine on board. No charges were laid in that episode. In 2006 he was busted again, this time with bails of pot. He again escaped unscathed. In October 2011, the U.S. Coast Guard caught Stirling captaining a boat with 400kg of cocaine on board. Charges stuck, and he was sentenced to 90 months in U.S. federal prison.

He has Hells Angels connections that date back decades.