COPS TAKE AIM AT DRUG CONVOYS

Highway Near Kenora The Weak Spot

WINNIPEG -- The Trans-Canada Highway at the Manitoba-Ontario boundary is
considered by many crime fighters to be the No. 1 "choke point" in the drug
pipeline between British Columbia and the lucrative southern Ontario drug
market.

Late last month, the RCMP said outlaw bikers were shipping truckloads of
high-grade B.C. marijuana to Toronto daily through that "choke point" -- a
strategic bottleneck in Canada transportation system.

'Stocking The Shelves'

Police said the Hells Angels are "stocking the shelves of their new
chapters" with prime B.C. pot to make a breakthrough into the huge Toronto
market. Bikers apparently prefer to truck weed across Canada because they
don't face customs checks.

One way to disrupt the flow, police said, is to position specially trained
officers at choke points and put the squeeze on smugglers. Such a location
is the Manitoba-Ontario boundary.

"Take a look at a road map of this country. Follow the Trans-Canada Highway
from B.C. to Ontario. Just east of Falcon Lake (Manitoba), everything
funnels down to that one stretch of road. One way east, one way west. There
is no other option," said Sgt. Ken Shipley of the Winnipeg police force.

"When it comes down to that narrowing point, it can be like shooting fish
in a barrel," he said.

RCMP Cpl. Rob Ruiters, Winnipeg-based national program coordinator of
Operation Pipeline/Convoy, said: "Like the guys in the field say, if you
miss one, don't worry. There are always two more on the way."

Since the program's inception in 1994, Ruiters and his Ottawa counterpart,
Cpl. Pat O'Brien, have trained more than 10,000 police, customs and
transport officers, who have seized more than $75 million in drugs.

The operation hasn't been without its hiccups, many of them at the
Manitoba-Ontario boundary. The Kenora court has ruled on three occasions in
the past two years that police wrongfully obtained evidence in a highway
search by violating a person's Charter rights.

"The program is about looking for indicators. It's about heightening
awareness. It's not about preconceived ideas of what a smuggler looks
like," Ruiters said. "The moment an officer is looking for Cheech and Chong
he has put himself at a disadvantage.

"A lot of the smugglers we catch are white men in their mid-50s. What we
teach is all about looking for anomalies during routine police work. It's
not profiling," Ruiters said.

"And as long as this method is applied the way it's been taught, there is
no Charter problem."