DRUGS, GUNS AND MONEY

Raids Result In Many Arrests In Toronto, Guelph And Kitchener

Dozens of early-morning raids across Ontario yesterday have plugged
an extensive pipeline of guns and drugs that flowed directly through
Waterloo Region, police said yesterday.

At least 27 people were arrested and 30 search warrants executed in
the operation, launched two years ago after Waterloo Regional Police
got a tip from the U.S.

The raids were concentrated in the Greater Toronto Area but extended
as far as Timmins, Guelph and Kitchener. Police seized 47 handguns,
several vehicles modified to hide guns and drugs as well as large
quantities of cocaine, heroine, marijuana and 50,000 counterfeit Viagra pills.

"Quite frankly, we are shocked by the extent of the criminal
organization we have uncovered in this investigation," Chief Bill
Blair of the Toronto Police said in a news conference, flanked by
investigators from the OPP and Waterloo Regional Police.

"It is most certainly a source of a vast number of the illegal
handguns that have made their way onto the streets of Toronto that
have caused so much death and destruction and fear in our communities."

A search of a Westforest Trail home in west Kitchener yielded four
arrests as well as more than 11 kilograms of marijuana, 32 ecstasy
tablets and two marijuana plants.

A 26-year-old man was taken to Toronto to be charged, and two men and
a woman were held in custody in Kitchener.

The investigation, dubbed Project Blackhawk, began after U.S. law
enforcement officials tipped off Waterloo Regional Police to a cache
of 237 handguns that had been smuggled across the border. The guns
originated with a retailer in the Chicago area and came into Canada
across the Ontario-Michigan boarder illegally, Blair said.

Local investigators contacted Toronto Police and the Ontario
Provincial Police after it became apparent the gun-smuggling
operation extended beyond Waterloo Region.

"It was obvious they were not intended just for here, but it's very
concerning that they were in our region," said Staff Sergeant Daryl
Goetz of the Waterloo Regional Police intelligence branch.

At least one gun linked to the original shipment has been used in a
local crime, he said. He wouldn't elaborate.

Goetz declined to give any further details about the Kitchener arm of
the operation, citing the continuing investigation.

Of the four people arrested in Kitchener yesterday, only one is
connected to the Project Blackhawk investigation, police said. The
other three are expected to appear in Kitchener court today.

As investigators started burrowing into the operation in 2006, they
found the organization was not only running guns, it was also
manufacturing huge quantities of drugs.

"What this criminal enterprise is doing is producing illegal
narcotics -- hydroponic marijuana, methamphetamine, and ecstasy --
shipping it to the United States and returning with illegal
quantities of powered cocaine, illegal proceeds of crime cash as well
as the firearms," Toronto Staff Inspector Greg Getty said, standing
behind 12 of the guns seized during the investigation.

What Blair described as a "dynamic and highly successful criminal
enterprise" has also been linked to a Mississauga drug lab, where
more than $160 million worth of powered and processed
methamphetamines and ecstasy were seized April 29.

"That lab was the largest manufacturing site of its kind that we have
ever seen in this country," Blair said.

Police would not speak about the alleged roles of those taken into
custody yesterday or provide other details about how the guns and
drugs moved throughout the province.

They also haven't said how many charged have been laid. Another news
conference was scheduled for this morning in Toronto.