Security was tight at the Whitehorse Law Courts building Monday as a drug dealer turned police agent testified during a cocaine-trafficking trial.

The trial began yesterday.

The accused is Jason McMillan, 42, of Vernon, B.C. He faces one count of drug possession for the purpose of trafficking.

The Crown’s first witness was a man whose identity is protected by a publication ban because he is in the Witness Protection Program. He appeared in person to testify about the trafficking ring he was a key player in back in 2013.

Sheriffs searched people entering the courtroom with metal detector wands and several plainclothes police officers milled about the courthouse.

The witness, dressed in a suit, said he made a deal with the RCMP in Whitehorse in August 2013. He’d provide them information about his business in exchange for money and protection from criminal charges.

One of his required tasks saw him drive to a business associate’s house to pick up a kilogram of cocaine. He then dropped it off at a police safe house in Whitehorse.

Staff Sgt. Major Doug Spencer, an RCMP fingerprints analyst, testified that McMillan’s fingerprints were later found on the package.

The police agent testified that he was a drug dealer in Whitehorse for 12 years. When questioned by McMillan’s lawyer, Jeremy Guild, he admitted he was one of the biggest dealers, if not the biggest, in the city at the time.

He would sell about two kilograms of cocaine every 10 days, he said.

He’d purchase them for $75,000 each and sell them, diluted and in smaller packages, for $90,000.

He was making about $90,000 a month, he said.

In 2006, he started working with the RCMP, giving them information to arrest people below him in the group’s hierarchy.

The man said he stopped doing this because it was hurting his business: when his workers were busted, he’d lose the cocaine they had in their possession.

“It would cost me $2,000 to send someone to jail and they’d (RCMP) only pay me $500,” he said.

Years later, though, on Aug. 30, 2013, he signed a new contract with the police.

He was in a Tim Hortons drive-thru one morning when a plainclothes officer walked up, tapped on his window and requested a meeting.

“I was curious, so I gave him a call,” the witness said.

After that, he had several meetings with the RCMP and underwent psychological testing.

He had to disclose all his criminal activity, including tax evasion, firearms possession and beatings.

In one case, he beat a man with a frozen pop can inside a sock and his associate used a hammer. The man’s skull broke open.

“You saw what you believed was the inside of his skull?” Guild asked.

“Correct,” the man replied.

“And you kept beating him?”

“Correct.”

The man said he decided to become a police agent because he no longer wanted to be a drug trafficker, preferring to lead a normal life.

His business partners wouldn’t let him leave voluntarily, telling him he still owed money, he said.

The terms of the police contract were that he would be paid $1,500 per week during the three-month “operational phase” of the investigation, plus $235,000.

Half of that amount was paid to him upon the arrests of his alleged business partners, and the other half will be paid once all the court proceedings conclude, court heard.

As well, in return for the information he gave police, he wouldn’t be charged for his role in the drug ring.

The witness testified he met McMillan at least once before, but didn’t know him well.

Several other men were also arrested in late 2013 and charged with cocaine trafficking in connection with this investigation.

Jesse Ritchie, Asif Aslam and Matthew Truesdale, all of the Lower Mainland in British Columbia, have not yet stood trial. That’s expected to happen next spring.

Yukon RCMP called the arrests the result of “one of the most significant organized crime investigations in the territory to date.”

The trial continued today in territorial court before Judge Karen Ruddy.