A man arrested during Project Monolith, a large-scale RCMP investigation into cocaine trafficking in the territory, is on trial this week in Yukon Supreme Court.

Kuntoniah Graham, 34, of Whitehorse, is charged with trafficking and possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking in the summer of 2013.

Several men were arrested after the Monolith investigation. They include Asif Aslam, Matthew Truesdale and Jesse Ritchie, who were allegedly the main players in the trafficking ring. They have not yet stood trial.

Another man, Jason McMillan, whose fingerprints were found on a kilogram of cocaine retrieved from a Porter Creek home in August 2013, stood trial in territorial court last month. A decision has not yet been handed down in that case.

Graham, it’s alleged, was at the home when one of his associates came by to pick up the kilogram from a stove drawer.

The associate, a man who can’t be identified because he’s now in the Witness Protection Program, was working with the RCMP at the time as a police agent.

He had worked as a drug dealer in Whitehorse for about 12 years, but in the summer of 2013, began working with police in exchange for money, protection from criminal charges and a new identity.

Amid tight security at the courthouse Monday, the agent testified wearing a suit and a silver watch. The same man also testified at McMillan’s trial.

He told the court he went through a series of meetings and psychological testing, and had to disclose his lengthy criminal history to the RCMP.

He signed a contract with police in August 2013. In exchange for providing information to the RCMP and gathering evidence, he would receive $1,500 weekly throughout the investigation.

He’d receive $235,000 on top of that – half at the end of the operation and the other half at the conclusion of all the court proceedings. He also wasn’t charged for his role in the trafficking ring.

“I wanted to leave the drug-dealing lifestyle, and my partners, the people I was working with, would not let me do that,” he said.

They told him he owed $48,000 that he insisted he’d already repaid.

On Aug. 30, 2013, the agent drove from an RCMP safe house to a home on Redwood Street in Porter Creek.

One of his partners had texted him to tell him there was a kilogram of cocaine at the home that had to be picked up, he said.

RCMP officers were in the area, surveilling the agent and the home.

The agent told Crown prosecutor Eric Marcoux he pulled into the driveway and saw the accused, Graham, working on a quad.

The two men went inside, and the agent asked if “the work” was still there, referring to the cocaine.

Graham said yes and pointed to the stove drawer, the agent testifed.

The agent then retrieved a brown paper bag from the drawer and drove back to the safe house.

In cross-examination, Graham’s lawyer, David Tarnow, suggested the agent had stashed the bag in the house before, an attempt to set up his client.

“You hate this guy,” Tarnow said, pointing at Graham.

“That’s fair to say,” the agent replied.

Tarnow suggested Graham wasn’t at the house that day, but the agent was willing to fool police to take advantage of what they were offering him: tax-free money, a new life and freedom from prosecution.

“It was a windfall for you,” Tarnow said.

The agent said he was telling the truth.

Tarnow then described some of the man’s criminal past – things he’d disclosed to the RCMP before becoming an agent.

He has a history of drug and weapons offences. He ran several grow-ops in British Columbia, and when he moved to Whitehorse, he began working as a street-level cocaine dealer for Aslam, he said, before moving up the ranks.

The agent admitted to beating up a man who’d stolen from his friend.

“You hit him with a pop can in a sock?” Tarnow asked.

“It was a pool ball, I believe,” the man said.

The man was left with a broken arm and cracked skull.

Before the witness became a police agent, his dog destroyed the interior of a rental car and he shot it, Tarnow pointed out.

He also tracked down “a kid” in Prince Rupert, B.C., suspected of talking to police about the drug operation, Tarnow said.

He and an associate brought the man back to Whitehorse, duct-taped him to a chair and beat him up inside a duplex that had plastic covering the walls so as to catch the blood.

“You have a sordid and shocking past here in Whitehorse and the Yukon,” Tarnow said to the man.

“Fair to say,” he replied.

Two RCMP officers also testified Monday: Const. Andrew Greer, the agent’s handler, and Const. Scott Carr, who surveilled the home on Aug. 30, 2013.

Carr said police wanted to ensure no one else was home when the agent went to the house for the pick-up, so he drove by to see if any cars were parked in front. He saw a blue Volkswagen Jetta with tinted windows backing into the driveway.

Carr stayed in the area, and about 35 minutes later saw a similar car driving westbound on Wann Road.

Then he parked on Redwood, down the street from the home, where he could still see the entrance to the driveway.

He sat there for a few hours and saw no vehicles pull in, except for the agent’s truck at 2:54 p.m.

When the truck drove off three minutes later, Carr drove by the house again and was surprised to see the blue Jetta in the driveway with its doors open.

“You didn’t fall asleep, did you?” Tarnow asked him.

“No, I did not,” Carr replied.

The trial continued today.