ON THE FRONTLINES OF THE WAR AGAINST DRUGS

Special Report: Oakville Beaver reporter David Lea sheds some light
on the secret life of an undercover cop with the Halton Regional
police Drug and Morality Bureau.

The room itself is unassuming. Considering what lies within you would
expect to see a guard posted outside or something, but this is not a
movie and the room is accessed with the simple turn of a key.

The room has the faint smell of marijuana, which makes sense because
there is quite a bit present along with just about every other
illegal drug imaginable.

Even prescription drugs, which have been stolen for resale, can be
seen, sealed within plastic bags on a nearby shelf.

The cache of narcotics is impressive to say the least with a street
value totaling at least a couple million dollars, however, this
street value will never be realized as all these drugs have been
seized by the Halton police and are now sitting in the drug vault,
located deep in the heart of the Halton Regional Police Service Headquarters.

Representing countless hours of work by the Halton Regional Police
Drug and Morality Bureau, the drug vault is bordered by shelves on
which the drugs have been sealed in envelopes and placed inside
plastic containers, marked with the name of the suspect with whom
they are connected.

Each drug seized will remain in the vault until the conclusion of its
alleged owner's trial, after which a judge will issue an order to
have the drug destroyed.

Like any community in the GTA there are a variety of illegal drugs
available within the Halton Region, which include marijuana, cocaine,
crack and ecstasy among others.

For the moment, marijuana serves as the illegal drug of choice in
Halton, followed by cocaine.

"What you would find to be the most popular would be cannabis
marijuana and I think that's pretty much standard. It's really
prevalent especially amongst youth," said Detective Constable Roy
Rogers (as Rogers also does undercover work his real name has been
withheld) of the Drug and Morality Bureau.

"It's a matter of preference for the person that's using it, probably
because it's more acceptable in the general public."

While some may see certain types of drugs as socially acceptable, the
Halton police are certainly not among them.

Rogers noted that it is important to get illegal drugs off the street
as heavy drug activity brings some heavy baggage to a community.

"People that are addicted to some of the drugs that we investigate,
obviously, have to fund their addiction and it can be quite expensive
for some of them, so we'll see thefts from vehicles or any sort of
thefts where they can fence the property," said Rogers.

"Violence can also be a real concern because you have people involved
in drug trafficking and some of the harder drugs tend to have a lot
of paranoia associated with them."

The production of drugs can also have a negative impact on the
structures they are manufactured in.

"An indoor cannabis marijuana grow lab utilizes large light bulbs to
mimic sunlight for the plants and the wiring these people do
obviously isn't professional and can cause a real fire hazard for
that residence and the houses that surround it," said Rogers.

"In addition to that a grow operation will typically have a higher
level of humidity. This causes mold in the house, which becomes a
real issue because once that person moves on the mold will still be
there and that can cause health problems for whoever moves in."

To deal with the drug issue in Halton, the Drug and Morality Bureau
has divided into two units with one dealing with street-level drug
trafficking while the other seeks out marijuana grow operations and
the other clandestine laboratories where the drugs are produced.

Rogers noted that every investigation into illegal drug activity is
different including the way the investigation gets started.

"Information can come from a variety of sources," he said.

"It could come from Crimestoppers tips, it could be through uniformed
individual officers, who have received information through their own
investigations, it could be through informants, it could be through
our own investigations when we're looking into something and we find
something else. There's no real typical way that an investigation starts."

Next comes the investigation itself, which can also be done in a
number of ways depending on what the officers think will work best to
determine whether they've been told the truth.

This investigation might involve the surveillance of a particular
individual or location, the use of an undercover officer or a variety
of other techniques.

Like most officers of the Drug and Morality Bureau Rogers has done
extensive undercover work, which he said provides great insight into
the drug sub-culture and how drug dealers run their operations, but
making the transition from police officer to undercover officer is no
easy process and requires considerable preparation.

"The training you receive is from a variety of different sources and
you draw upon those sources whether it be peer mentoring, formal
training or just stuff that you've learned from speaking to different
informants or through your own investigations or interviewing people
that are involved in the drug sub-culture," said Rogers.

"When I'm acting as an undercover officer in any type of
investigation, I will generally try and forget that I'm there as a
police officer. It just makes it easier for you to develop those
stories and a rapport with the person you're dealing with. Sometimes
you'd be required to make things up and you develop an ability to
think fast on your feet. Other times, you might be telling them a
story that's real from your own personal life. It's really no
different than meeting a new person for the first time."

While most undercover operations go smoothly, Rogers noted there have
been setbacks including situations where the people he was buying
crack cocaine from actually came out and asked if he was a cop.

"On a couple of different occasions they observed something, that had
nothing to do with me, that led them to believe that either the
police were following me or that I was a police officer," said Rogers.

"I was able to convince them that I wasn't."

Had the situation gone terribly wrong Rogers said there were safety
measures in place to protect both himself and the people he was
investigating, but he would not go into details.

Paranoid drug dealers are not the only threat undercover officers
face during the course of their work.

Rogers said another situation he had to prepare for was what to do
when you bump into someone you know from your real life when you're
in an undercover role.

"What you do depends on whether you're able to talk that person and
how much that person knows about you," he said."You might have to
brush the person off or be rude to them, so they'll walk away from
you. Then speak to them about it later."

The purpose of all this is for the undercover officer to gather as
much information as possible for an investigation that could last as
little as a day or as long as six months or more.

All that information gives the police grounds to apply for a search
of a suspect's residence or vehicle or wherever police believe the
drugs are going to be found.

The search warrant has to be precise to allow all evidence found at
the scene to be accepted in court. Rogers noted that he has written
search warrants as long as 85-90 pages to accomplish this.

When the time for the raid actually comes the Drug and Morality
Bureau may handle it themselves, however, if the suspects are
believed to be armed or another kind of threat is detected the police
tactical unit may be called upon to participate.

Speed is important to prevent the suspect from flushing or otherwise
disposing of their drugs.

Rogers said police sometimes execute search warrants when the target
is not home in order to prevent such a loss of evidence.

Other techniques can also be utilized, but Rogers would not talk
about them for fear of compromising future operations.

What police find when they execute their search warrants can also
differ drastically.

"You could be dealing with a person who has a lot of money, a
gorgeous house, nice cars and from the outside looking in would
appear to be your average citizen," said Rogers.

"But, then the next day you could be dealing with people who have
strong addictions to crack where there's 12 people in the house
smoking crack when you execute your entry."

While in some raids, like the one described above, the drugs are in
plain sight when police arrive in other instances police need to hunt for them.

Rogers noted that people can be very creative when it comes to hiding
their drugs.

"People will hide stuff sometimes in speakers or inside TVs," he said.

"Any place you can fit a substance people will try to hide it there.
We take our time and we're very methodical in our search otherwise a
lot of the work that you've done could be for nothing."

A recent history of high-profile drug busts in Halton shows that in
many cases the hard work does pay off.

On Feb. 4, 2007 police seized $8 million worth of cocaine from a
transport truck in Milton, resulting in the arrest of a Brampton resident.

On Oct. 17, 2007, Halton's Drug and Morality Bureau assisted numerous
other police agencies in putting an organized drug distribution ring
out of business with homes in Burlington and Hamilton being raided,
resulting in the arrests of six people and the seizure of $183,500
worth of drugs.

On July 20, 2007 Halton police put a marijuana grow operation in
Oakville out of commission seizing $465,000 worth of marijuana and
arresting a Toronto man.

These successes continued into 2008 with $783,000 worth of cocaine
seized from an Oakville storage facility on May 30 with an Oakville
man arrested.

Those arrested in Halton raids have, for the most part, been in
business for themselves, said Rogers who also pointed out that
membership in some kind of organized criminal syndicate is not a
prerequisite to sell drugs in Halton.

With illegal drugs still readily available in Halton even after all
these arrests and seizures, one might think police would be
frustrated by the seemingly endless nature of the war on drugs,
however, the impact of what is being done is obvious to Rogers.

"There's a number of times where you'll receive information about a
person dealing hard drugs in a residential area. People addicted to
those drugs are coming to those areas, there's kids living around
those houses and the citizens there are experiencing some of the
problems that come with these activities," said Rogers.

"When you go there and are able to successfully complete an
investigation, charge and arrest the people responsible for causing
those problems for those people you definitely make an impact. I
really believe that."