Criminal charges have been laid against Silver International Investment, a money-transfer business that RCMP allege was involved in money laundering, had ties to underground banking and used suspected drug cash to fund Chinese VIP gamblers in B.C. casinos. During the RCMP's so-called E-Pirate probe, Mounties allege they uncovered $500 million-plus from a Richmond money-laundering service that they said handled up to $1.5 million a day. "The Public Prosecution Service of Canada can confirm that charges have been laid against Caixuan Qin, Jian Jun Zhu, and Silver International Investments Ltd. in relation to Project E-Pirate," spokeswoman Nathalie Houle said Wednesday in an email. "We have no other information to provide at this time." [continues 685 words]
Confusing Market: Health Canada sends cease-and-desist orders to 13 B.C. dispensaries over illegal ads As the federal government for the first time threatened police action against some B.C. marijuana dispensaries this week, pot's prominence in the October federal election is only getting higher, says a B.C. criminologist. SFU professor Neil Boyd believes B.C.'s booming pot dispensary sector is currently competing with Health Canada's "bizarre" medical marijuana regime and street dealers, in a confusing market roiled by political and legal crosswinds. [continues 361 words]
Residents gather signatures for petition, want city hall to step in Residents of an East Vancouver neighbourhood say the City of Vancouver must respond to a "surge" of prostitutes, crime and drug activity that they say is endangering area families and harming children. Ewart Aitken and Marcia DeCosta are two of over 200 Kensington Cedar Cottage neighbours who have signed a petition demanding action from city hall and East Vancouver politicians including NDP MP Don Davies. The petitioners want the city to bar prostitution from residential neighbourhoods and contain it within a "red-light" district. [continues 315 words]
Corruption Alleged If Search Warrants Were Flawed, Convictions May Have Been False In a shocking probe of alleged police corruption in Abbotsford, hundreds of drug search warrants dating from at least 2005 will be examined, amid fears that notorious gang cases will be reopened and convictions overturned. Abbotsford grew into a North American centre of drug dealing and murders over the past 15 years, with bloody cases involving the Red Scorpions, Hells Angels and United Nations gangs spilling into the community and eventually its courtrooms. [continues 636 words]
Depending on your perspective, Mark Townsend might be the visionary that put Vancouver's harm reduction model on the map, or the profligate spender who nearly destroyed a massive non-profit by appearing to live comfortably on the backs of society's most vulnerable. Townsend himself says the story is much more complicated than that. Last year, after two decades of building the Portland Hotel Society from scratch into the dominant service provider in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Townsend was forced to step down as executive director amid a spending scandal. [continues 517 words]
NON-PROFIT: Group has changed its financial structure to allow for more accountability, Ted Bruce says A year ago, the PHS Community Services Society, a sprawling nonprofit known worldwide for providing housing, clean needles and compassion to Vancouver's addicts, nearly overdosed on bad spending. Since then, the society has significantly increased its spending and holdings in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and big financial risks remain. The society now has $18 million in debt and $70 million in land and buildings in the DTES. [continues 829 words]
Speculation underway over future of progressive Vancouver police boss and his possible successor After Vancouver police Chief Jim Chu announced a surprising early retirement Friday, speculation immediately turned to his potential as a star political candidate and who would succeed him as chief. Chu is only in his mid-50s, so by passing up about $600,000 remaining in his 10-year contract, it's pretty safe to assume he has a second career in mind. Chu didn't discourage speculation at a news conference Friday when reporters pressed him on rumours he is being sought by either the federal Conservatives or Liberals to run in the 2015 election. [continues 409 words]
Activists Slam a Health Canada Notice Ordering Sick Pot Users to Destroy Current Supply or Face Police Action Medical marijuana patients are in an uproar over a "brutal" and "punitive" Health Canada order forcing the destruction of "legally grown medicine," according to a B.C. activist. Dana Larsen of Sensible B.C. said a press release from Health Canada on Friday "shows why the agency cannot be trusted to act in the best interest of Canadians who need cannabis based medicines." [continues 356 words]
What looks like a botched marijuana grow-op theft in Langley came to a bloody end when a 25-year old man was shot dead Friday night. RCMP Sgt. Jennifer Pound of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said police were called to a shooting near 16th Avenue and 272nd Street in the Aldergrove area at about 9: 30 p.m. As a squad car approached the scene, officers were flagged down by two men. The men led police to a nearby vehicle, where officers found a gunshot victim lifeless and bloodied, in the back seat. [continues 132 words]
What looks like a botched marijuana grow-op theft in Langley came to a bloody end when a 25-year-old man was shot dead Friday night. RCMP Sgt. Jennifer Pound of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said police were called to a shooting near 16th Avenue and 272nd Street in the Aldergrove area at about 9:30 p.m. As a squad car approached the scene, officers were flagged down by two men. The men led police to a nearby vehicle, where officers found a gunshot victim lifeless and bloodied, in the back seat. [continues 157 words]
Kelowna's top cop was stunned to learn his 22-year-old daughter has been charged in connection to an alleged dial-a-dope scheme, the RCMP says. Lisa Mckinnon, 22, daughter of Supt. Bill Mckinnon, has been charged with drug trafficking after being arrested this week, allegedly in possession of crack and heroin. Police say she was arrested Tuesday during an alleged illegal drug transaction along with an unidentified 19-yearold woman, in Kelowna. The news of Lisa's arrest on Tuesday shocked and disappointed Supt. Mckinnon and his wife, also an RCMP member, according to Insp. Rick Flewelling. [continues 142 words]
Friend Of Drug-Overdose Victim Kato Burgess Says Buddy 'Looked Really Bad' Kato Burgess's best friend says Kato was bullied at school and may have "wanted to die" before apparently taking a fatal overdose of ecstasy. Kato, 16, started buying drugs from older teens in December and staying up all night partying, said Matt Delaney, a close school friend. According to Delaney, Kato last weekend "looked really bad. He had been taking about 20 sleeping pills at a time. Like he would take the whole bottle. His face was white, and his eyes were bloodshot. [continues 408 words]
Drug's Manufacturers Switch to Fake Tablets Linked to Deaths in B.C. and Alberta New tough laws cracking down on ecstasy production in B.C. had the unintended consequences of opening the door to more toxic fake ecstasy pills, a criminologist says. The synthetic drug PMMA wasn't on the radar for police or the public until last week, when the B.C. Coroners Service announced the "new" unregulated chemical had been linked to at least five ecstasy-related deaths in B.C. in the past six months, and a number of deaths in Alberta. [continues 301 words]
Five ecstasy-related deaths in B.C. over the past six months involved a rare and dangerous chemical that was previously unknown to the B.C. Coroner's Service, officials said Friday. Toxicology reports showed that, of 16 ecstasy deaths in 2011 and two so far in 2012, the chemical PMMA was present in the deaths of three males and two females, said chief coroner Lisa Lapointe. In all 18 tested cases, the compound traditionally associated with ecstasy, MDMA, was present as well. [continues 422 words]
24-Year-Old Woman Ingested Seven Pills On New Year's Eve A 24-year-old Abbotsford woman is in hospital near death after consuming more than seven ecstasy pills in a New Year's Eve drug binge. It's the second ecstasy overdose in just over a week in the community. Several days before Christmas, Abbotsford teen Cheryl McCormack, 17, was rushed to hospital in critical condition and later died after taking ecstasy with three friends during a sleepover. In the latest case, Abbotsford police Const. Ian MacDonald said, a group of four friends aged 23 to 31 partied for seven hours starting New Year's Eve, with each friend admit-ting to ingesting between four to seven pills of ecstasy. [continues 450 words]
Used His Badge to Deal Drugs and Exploit Addicts Former Vancouver police officer Peter Hodson's long "fall from grace" finally hit bottom Thursday as he was sentenced to three years in federal prison for using his badge to deal drugs and exploit vulnerable addicts. Provincial Court Judge Gregory Rideout's stern ruling stunned Hodson -- a father of four, former basketball star and active member of White Rock's Christian community -- and his numerous supporters in court. "Your remarkable fall from grace is a burden that will stay with you for life," Rideout said, as Hodson bowed his head and his wife Sarah burst into tears. She cried hysterically as Hodson was cuffed and led away, and he teared up and waved goodbye. [continues 714 words]
Pavel Kulisek feels like he was born again. The 45-year-old North Vancouver father spent more than three years in Mexican prison without a trial, on drug charges of which he says he's completely innocent. He was released last week, following an intense legal fight, led by the forceful advocacy of his wife, Jirina Kuliskova, and pressure from Canadian officials. In an interview Friday, Kulisek said he hadn't slept for three days, as he tried to absorb the joy of his freedom - and watching his daughters Isabella and Annie 24 hours a day. [continues 467 words]
Man Shone Flashlight at Black Hawk Border-Patrol Helicopter Many in a small Washington town bordering Abbotsford will be praying today that the deacon who wielded a beacon to chase away "overzealous" border-patrol agents in low-flying Black Hawk choppers doesn't get sent to jail. Wayne Groen, 42, of Lynden will be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Seattle this afternoon, after a jury convicted him of temporarily blinding a U.S. border-patrol helicopter pilot in September 2010 with a powerful hand-held flashlight. The crime is a felony with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 US fine. [continues 358 words]
A man is found in a vehicle bound hand and foot with a bag over his head. His brain is bleeding and his left eye is crushed beyond repair. The gory aftermath of a brutal grow-op ripoff should prove to B.C. marijuana aficionados that pot is a blood-soaked commodity rather than a harmless product, North Vancouver RCMP say. Cpl. Peter DeVries made the point while announcing recommendations of four charges against two men in an attack on a 67-year-old Surrey man. [continues 213 words]
The fatal mistake made by a rookie nurse in a methadone overdose death at a Maple Ridge prison points to systemic flaws in B.C.'s health system, the B.C. Nurses Union says. As The Province reported Wednesday, a confidential B.C. Corrections review shows a nurse on her second orientation shift - who should only have been shadowing a regular nurse - was responsible for supplying methadone to a 32-year-old inmate at Fraser Regional Correctional Centre. Because of a staff shortage the nurse was apparently asked to go out on methadone rounds without proper training and supervision. The review suggests the 32-year-old man used a borrowed identification card to trick the nurse into supplying methadone that was prescribed to go to a cellmate. [continues 190 words]
A nurse who should not have been administering methadone supplied the dose that killed a 32-yearold inmate at a Maple Ridge prison, he Province has learned. Details of the unidentified man's death in October 2010 are revealed in a confidential review by B.C. Corrections, which was released to The Province under freedom of information law. As a result of stunning staff errors in the death at Fraser Regional Correctional Centre, B.C. Corrections has completed a review of its methadone program and is making changes. [continues 828 words]
Mission's controversial grow-op bylaw is under attack on two fronts. A councillor is seeking to rescind the bylaw, and 74 residents have reportedly joined to file a class-action lawsuit against the district. As The Province reported recently, a number of Mission residents have complained that their homes were searched for pot grow-ops and they were slapped with fees and repair orders costing upward of $10,000 -- all on questionable evidence. On Tuesday, Coun. Jenny Stevens asked that a motion to rescind the bylaw be considered by Mission council on Jan. 24. [continues 195 words]
Mission Hearings a 'Rubber-Stamp' Process: Councillor Politicians in Mission may be blindly accepting controversial evidence against citizens targeted in grow-op bylaw searches, one councillor says. In so-called "Section 57" hearings, councillors are presented evidence reports from the Public Safety Inspection Team -- including mildew, electrical safety faults and mould readings -- and tasked with either tagging homes as unsafe under the grow-op bylaw or clearing them. Coun. Jenny Stevens says despite a recent internal review of the process, she still has "deep-felt questions" that councillors don't understand evidence, making the hearings a "rubber-stamp" process. [continues 342 words]
Citizens Subjected to Pot Searches Cite Insult, Costs There's no way Len Gratto is paying a $5,200 fine to Mission city hall for growing cucumbers in his basement. Gratto -- a 67-year-old who has lived for 30 years with his wife in their Mission home -- says he's raring to join an imminent classaction lawsuit attacking the municipality's grow-op bylaw inspections. A number of citizens, led by Mission man Stacy Gowanlock, will allege their homes were illegally searched for pot grow-ops and they were slapped with fees and repair orders costing upward of $10,000 -- all on questionable evidence. [continues 722 words]
RCMP Say Latest Incident Was a 'Drug Rip' Police in Prince George are investigating an apparent "drug rip" home invasion. Officers were called to a home on the 1600-block Juniper Street Friday morning after occupants reported a man had burst into the home with a "large-edged weapon," demanding drugs, Cpl. Craig Douglass said. Police believe the suspect is a First Nations man "in his 20s wearing a tan hoodie, blue jeans and runners." The suspect was unable to control two occupants in the home and fled. He and an unidentified driver took off in an older, dark-coloured Honda vehicle. No one was injured in the incident, Douglass said. [continues 176 words]
Brass Claim Pot Activist Is 'Ineligible' To Run It must have seemed like a bad-trip flashback for Dana Larsen. Shortly after announcing his run for the B.C. NDP leadership Wednesday morning, the controversial 39-year-old pot activist and failed federal NDP candidate found out second-hand that party brass apparently wanted to weed him out. Party president Moe Sihota told The Province that Larsen is "currently ineligible and may be ultimately ineligible," to run for the provincial NDP leadership, because his membership had lapsed, and he had already been declared ineligible for the federal NDP in 2008. [continues 295 words]
Source also links bloodshed to contracted attack The Sunday morning shooting of 10 people outside a Vancouver west-side restaurant was triggered by the murder of gangster Gurmit Dhak in a Metrotown mall parking lot on Oct. 16, police said Monday. Const. Jana McGuinness said all the victims had gang affiliations and no one outside of their group was shot. The gunfire erupted when a party of about 30 people left the Best Neighbours Restaurant after closing time. Bullets from an automatic weapon were sprayed at the group of men and their girlfriends. A gun was later found by police just a block from Mayor Gregor Robertson's home. [continues 582 words]
City Inspects Homes on Questionable Grow-Op Evidence, Then Bills Owners Mission is reviewing its home growop inspection program over allegations the municipality sometimes abuses its power by barring innocent families from their homes and slapping them with fees and repair orders costing upward of $10,000 -- all on questionable evidence. The Province learned of the unannounced move -- which took effect this week -- while investigating a number of complaints from citizens in Mission. In Mission and a number of cities across the Lower Mainland, "controlled substance property bylaws" mean municipal inspectors can enter homes with abnormally high hydro usage -- about 93 kilowatts per day or more -- and look for evidence of illegal marijuana grow-ops for public safety reasons. [continues 1594 words]
It's the grimmest example of a "bad trip" imaginable. According to a B.C. Coroner's report, Daniel Cho, a popular 17-year-old American music student who loved to make hip hop beats, jumped a protective railing and fell down a cliff at Capilano Suspension Bridge in June while in the throws of an LSD-induced delirium. Coroner Mark Coleman concluded there was no evidence that Cho intended to harm himself on June 6 when he stepped over a 1.2-metre-high protective railing at a viewing platform and plunged 30 metres to his death. [continues 132 words]
Crystal Meth, As Well As Coke, In Shipments From Mexico Mounties say they are working with Mexican authorities after seizing about $9 million in cocaine and crystal meth in Vancouver that is believed to have come from Mexican drug cartels. The bust is one of the biggest ever in B.C., RCMP Staff-Sgt. Dave Goddard said at a news conference Tuesday in Vancouver. The Canada Border Services Agency recently intercepted seven marine shipping containers coming through the Port of Vancouver. The commercial containers, declared to contain "crafts," came from Mexico, police say. [continues 305 words]
Violent gangsters in Prince George got a surprise visit from B.C.'s Uniform Gang Task Force this weekend. Facing a wave of drug-related violence, the Prince George RCMP requested a visit from the Lower Mainland-based gang unit, which was formed in the wake of a bloody gang war in 2007 with a mandate to clear gangsters and guns out of bars. Const. Lesley Smith said Prince George police are seeing brutal violence wreaked by mid-level players associated with Lower Mainland gangs - such as Independent Soldiers and Game Tight Soldiers, and the Renegades, a Hells Angels puppet club. [continues 294 words]
The lawyer for accused drugdealing Vancouver police officer Peter Hodson wants to review case evidence in hopes of quickly getting his client out on bail. Asked if Hodson is having a tough time with other inmates in custody at the Surrey Pre-Trial Centre, lawyer Vincent Michaels said: "It wouldn't be pleasant for any former police officer in that situation." Wearing a red prison jumpsuit, Hodson, 31, appeared briefly in B.C. Provincial Court in Vancouver on Monday. Standing in the court dock, Hodson fidgeted, repeatedly scratching his biceps and pulling at his fingers in apparent nervousness. [continues 88 words]
Back In School And Taking Parenting Seriously Hayley Nicholson was high on crystal meth when she went for the ultrasound test. She knew she was pregnant -- two little coloured bars on a home test kit had told her that. She had bawled when the bars turned blue, because she knew she was in no shape to have a child, she says. She was 17 and had dropped out of school and had been hooked on meth for about five years. The father, her first love, was a meth addict, dealer and thief. Hayley was living with her mom, but they weren't getting along. It's hard to deal with a daughter who stays high for 13 days straight and cuts herself and obsessively colours on the walls and sterilizes her bedroom, scrubbing the ceiling for hours on end, she admits. [continues 334 words]
New Poppy Drug Used In India And Pakistan Troubling South Asian Community Surrey police have made the first strike in B.C. against "doda," a "highly addictive" opium-derived drug that is being openly sold throughout the Lower Mainland and is tearing up the South Asian community, says Surrey Newton MLA Harry Bains. An RCMP drug unit raided a large manufacturer in a busy Surrey shopping centre on Wednesday and allegedly turned up hundreds of kilograms of poppy pods and a "large quantity" of the related substance doda, which police say is known as "poor-man's heroin." It was the first large-scale seizure, of doda in B.C., according to RCMP. [continues 240 words]
A $50,000 payday looked easy for 29-year-old Jeremy Snow. With some helicopter training in his past, the man from Kelowna was recruited to fly payloads of B. C. marijuana into the U. S. and hook up with a cocaine connection for the return trip to Canada. He never got his money. Shortly after taking off from Kelowna's Okanagan Mountain Helicopters without a licence, Snow was arrested when he touched down in a forest landing pad in northern Idaho with 80 kilograms of marijuana on board. [continues 323 words]
Big Payoffs Tempt Young Trainee Pilots To Make Cross-border Trips A $50,000 payday looked easy for 29-year-old Jeremy Snow. With some helicopter training in his past, the man from Kelowna was recruited to fly payloads of B.C. marijuana into the United States and hook up with a cocaine connection for the return trip to Canada. He never got his money. Shortly after taking off from Kelowna's Okanagan Mountain Helicopters without a licence, Snow was arrested when he touched down in a forest landing pad in northern Idaho with 80 kilograms of marijuana on board. [continues 602 words]
Helicopters Becoming Craft Of Choice For Cross-border Gangs A $50,000 payday looked easy for 29-year-old Jeremy Snow of Kelowna. With a little helicopter training, he says, he was recruited to fly B.C. bud into the U.S. and hook up with a cocaine connection for the return trip to Canada. He never got his money. Shortly after taking off from Kelowna's Okanagan Mountain Helicopters without a licence, Snow was arrested when he touched down in a forest in northern Idaho with 80 kilograms of marijuana. He was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Seattle earlier this month to just under four years in jail for his part in a cross-border drug-smuggling ring. [continues 657 words]
Young Woman's Murder At All-Night Party Last Straw For Sli'ammon First Nation On the hottest day of July on the Sli'ammon reserve north of Powell River, 80 people marched to the rundown home where Emma Megan Wilson - -- a tough 20-year-old with a pretty smile -- had been stabbed to death at an all-night drug party. It had been a horrific year for the 950-member Sli'ammon band, with about 15 deaths, including drug- and alcohol-related tragedies. A young addict had just been saved from hanging himself. [continues 892 words]
Canadian organized crime has gradually cemented a grip on the trade of synthetic party drugs since 2003, said the 2009 United Nations World Drug Report. "Canada has emerged as the primary source of ecstasy-group substances for North American markets and for other regions," the report says. "Canada has become a major trafficking hub for meth and ecstasy." Simon Fraser University criminologist Rob Gordon said the report "is demonstrating once again [that] the grip of crime here is increasing." "The report says Canada, and especially B.C., is at the centre of synthetic-drug production today." [continues 180 words]
North Van Woman Won't Forfeit Grow-Op House A North Vancouver woman who gets to keep her house -- and duck a $100,000 fine for growing and selling marijuana from home -- was "pleasantly shocked" by a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in her favour Friday. Judy Ann Craig, a 58-year-old former realtor who now travels the province selling wholesale goods, went to Canada's highest court to appeal the seizure of her $500,000 North Van home, which she had used to grow and sell pot starting in 1998. [continues 530 words]
A North Vancouver woman who was booted from her home for running a lucrative grow-op is to learn her fate this morning in a ruling from the highest court in Canada. Judy Ann Craig, a 58-year-old former realtor, appealed in November 2008 to the Supreme Court of Canada to halt the forfeiture of the North Van house she used as a marijuana growing and selling business, clearing "over $100,000 a year" according to the B.C. Court of Appeal. [continues 227 words]
The lawyer for a number of alleged 'compassion club' marijuana dealers says the RCMP has made a false claim against the alleged ringleader and police are essentially wasting the public's time by spending 18 months investigating sales of marijuana. On Wednesday the North Vancouver RCMP announced at least 41 charges against a large group of "dial-a-dopers" allegedly selling marijuana through the front of a medical marijuana compassion club. In what seems to be a legally murky area of enforcement, compassion clubs sell marijuana to users permitted to buy the drug through Health Canada applications that are backed up by physicians' prescriptions. [continues 1075 words]
A ring of 13 alleged dial-a-dope dealers that police say were selling drugs through the front of a medical marijuana compassion club has been busted by North Vancouver RCMP. The group, allegedly headed by 39-year-old Jason Thon of Vancouver, called itself The Compassion Association and was busted after police got an anonymous tip in September 2007. Compassion clubs sell marijuana to those who use it for medical reasons. Police say the only legal way to buy marijuana is with federal permits. [continues 283 words]
North Shore mayors are pouring cold water on the idea of police amalgamation as a response to unprecedented gang violence that has left the region blood-spattered in the past month, while offering cautious support for justice system remedies advocated by a group of seven mayors last week. Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts, who organized the policy caucus with mostly Fraser Valley officials and did not invite North Shore mayors, said her group will press for a crackdown on gang violence through legislative reform - including mandatory firearms offence sentencing - - and not by regionalizing area police forces. [continues 1598 words]
North Vancouver woman Judy Ann Craig, a 58-year-old former realtor, has appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada to halt the forfeiture of the North Vancouver house she used as a marijuana growing and selling business, generating "over $100,000 a year" in income according to the B.C. Court of Appeal. Craig is one of three Canadians challenging federal drug laws that have been increasingly used to seize homes containing grow-ops. Following last Thursday's hearing, the court has reserved judgment and a ruling may not come before the new year said federal lawyer Paul Riley. Riley said he could not comment on the hearing. [continues 657 words]
Undercover op - Const. Michael McLaughlin tails a suspected dial-a-doper during a recent operation involving the RCMP's undercover Crime Reduction Unit. It's Friday night, 10:15 p.m., and four unmarked RCMP cars are tailing a blue Previa Multi-Purpose-Vehicle apparently being purposed in a way its manufacturer did not intend - door-to-door crack-cocaine delivery. The van pulls into the International Plaza apartment towers at Capilano and Marine Drive and rolls through the lobby-loop slowly; two men jump in the back, joining the driver and his passenger. [continues 2442 words]
While the targeted execution of a Burnaby man outside a North Vancouver recreation centre this weekend is adding urgency to the current discussion on the North Shore's policing future, the three local mayors are not ready to say whether regionalization is the answer to increasing drug-related violence. In what police call a targeted hit, Chi Wai Liao, 32, who was known to police and previously convicted on gun possession crimes, was shot multiple times through the window of his parked pick-up truck while sitting in the parking lot outside Delbrook recCentre following a floor-hockey game late Saturday night. According to West Van Mayor Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, on Tuesday police sources told her Liao was "a known drug-dealer." [continues 826 words]
When it comes to fighting the crystal meth problem on the North Shore, there is good news and bad news. Authorities say this area is not experiencing the scourge of the "mom and pop" home meth labs common in the United States and other parts of the Lower Mainland, and the incidence of use among teens is not as high as some have feared. But meth made in "super labs" in other jurisdictions is available to area youth and meth-addicted criminals have targeted the North Shore for crime sprees and identity theft campaigns. [continues 530 words]
Residents of a House Containing a Crystal Meth Lab Are Arrested in Surrey. When it comes to fighting the crystal meth problem on the North Shore, there is good news and bad news. Authorities say this area is not experiencing the scourge of the "mom and pop" home meth labs common in the United States and other parts of the Lower Mainland, and the incidence of use among teens is not as high as some have feared. But meth made in "super labs" in other jurisdictions is available to area youth and meth-addicted criminals have targeted the North Shore for crime sprees and identity theft campaigns. [continues 531 words]
