Pubdate: Thu, 08 Jul 2004
Source: Chronicle Herald (CN NS)
Copyright: 2004 The Halifax Herald Limited
Contact:  http://www.herald.ns.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/180
Author: Dan Arsenault

SMASHING GANG BIGGER DEAL THAN COKE SEIZURE

Monday's $18-million cocaine seizure off the Eastern Shore wasn't the 
RCMP's biggest catch that day, say Quebec Mounties.

The head of the force's criminal operations in Quebec said arrests made in 
the case smashed a gang whose main function was to bring drugs to Canada 
for others to sell.

"The largest impact here is not with the quantity of the drug (seized), 
despite the fact that is a very large quantity, it is with the dismantling 
of the criminal organization," Chief Supt. Antoine Couture said at a 
Halifax news conference Wednesday.

"They were transport providers to other organizations. We have dismantled 
their organization, which (involved) carrying, transporting, importing, 
smuggling the cocaine into Canada."

Mounties on Zodiacs boarded the 15-metre sailboat Friendship on Monday 
night near the White Islands, 20 kilometres off Moser River and about 100 
kilometres east of Halifax.

They seized 500 kilograms of cocaine, arrested two men on the boat and 
three others near Moser River who allegedly were to offload the cocaine, 
plus three people in Quebec and one in Antigua. A gun and cash were also 
seized.

Seven suspects are from Quebec and the others are from Antigua and 
Colombia; two are women. Police said they may make more arrests.

The RCMP received help from a navy frigate and a coast guard vessel, the 
Canadian Border Services Agency, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and 
police in Quebec, Halifax, Antigua and St. Martins.

Police allege the sailboat, loaded with coke from Colombia or the 
Caribbean, left Antigua on June 23 and headed for the White Islands, where 
other Zodiacs would have taken the drugs to a house the criminals owned in 
Moser River.

"From there it would have been trucked back to Montreal," said Sgt. Andre 
Potvin, lead investigator in the RCMP's Montreal drug section.

He said police were watching somebody waiting in a truck at the shoreline 
near the gang-purchased house. He praised officers for a successful 
stakeout that lasted several days in an isolated area.

"You really have to commend the police officers that had to work in that 
environment and not be detected."

Supt. Couture said the RCMP first set out to break up the drug organization 
in 1999.

"This is what we have done. It's a major setback for the organization. I 
think we have really neutralized it."

He said many different police forces collaborated on the bust.

"The information was received that this group was active and had these 
plans to import major quantities of cocaine.

"As soon as we identified the possibility that the merchandise will be 
coming through the eastern part of the country we entered into 
communications with the RCMP divisions that are located in Atlantic Canada."

Supt. Couture said the RCMP spent at least $1 million on the investigation, 
dubbed Project Columbie, which was started by Montreal RCMP in July 2003.

He said only big-time dealers would be directly connected to the importers.

"They have to be organizations that are able to put on the street that 
large a quantity of drugs."

Supt. Couture said the coke could have appeared on Montreal's streets 
within a month.

Police think the suspects tried to arrange some earlier trips this year, 
but their plans fell through.

All the suspects were flown to Montreal shortly after the bust. They will 
be tried in Quebec, where a preliminary inquiry should start by fall or 
early next year.

On display at the news conference were 24 one-kilogram bricks of coke, a 
35-kilogram bale and two large plastic tubs, each holding about 50 bricks.

"What you see is a very small sampling of what was there," said Supt. Craig 
MacLaughlan, the RCMP's criminal operations officer for Nova Scotia.

"These packets were all through the vessel, stored in very traditional 
storage compartments in a vessel of that size . . . under the decks, in the 
cabinetry, under the bunks."

He said it was a "significant" seizure.

"There have been larger ones and there have been smaller ones" in Nova 
Scotia, said Supt. MacLaughlan.

He said Nova Scotia's geography makes it attractive to smugglers.

"We all know that there's over 7,000 kilometres of uninhabited coastline in 
Nova Scotia, so obviously it leads the criminal element to our shores. It 
gives them access to offload their goods and get it into other parts of 
Canada."

Cmdr. Mark Norman, commanding officer of HMCS St. John's, said the sight of 
his frigate approaching Friendship at speeds of 28 knots had to be 
intimidating for the yacht's crew.

"It was described to me after the fact that these individuals were visibly 
shocked and in awe of what had happened, and the speed with which it was 
executed."

The frigate approached the sailboat behind the RCMP's boarding vessel and 
later took the suspects to Halifax. Some of the ship's crew sailed the 
yacht, escorted by the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Edward Cornwallis, 
back to Halifax, where it is tied up at HMC Dockyard.

Although initial reports said the sailboat came from Antigua, authorities 
in that country say it wasn't registered there.

The boat's stern says the Friendship is from Salem, Ore. However, the RCMP 
wouldn't say where or if the yacht was registered anywhere.

"That's part of the investigation," said spokeswoman Const. Marie-Veronique 
Bourque.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart