AIR CANADA WORKER SUSPECT IN DRUG BUST

Seizure of 61.5 Kilos of Cocaine From Mexico Linked to Hells Angels

An Air Canada employee is at the centre of an international
investigation after authorities at Vancouver International Airport
seized a large quantity of cocaine before Christmas. Paula Shore of
the Canada Border Services Agency said yesterday officers seized 61.5
kilograms of the drug "in the early hours of Dec. 23."

RCMP sources told The Province they believe the drugs originated in
Mexico and that investigators were looking at a "strong link" to B.C.
members of the Hells Angels.

The drugs were found in unaccompanied suitcases, the RCMP source
said, adding that the people behind the shipment had "inside help."

Police would not say if the bust is connected to two earlier seizures
at YVR this year and last year, in which cocaine was found in
suitcases that arrived on flights from Mexico.

Shore said she's not aware of any arrests in the latest bust and that
she did not have information on the origin of the drugs.

The border agency is working with the RCMP and international
law-enforcement groups to trace the source of the drugs, she said.

"Seizing a shipment of contraband is great because it takes it off
the streets, but also we work with agencies around the world to try
and find the individuals responsible for bringing illegal contraband
into Canada."

Air Canada spokesman John Reber confirmed that an airline employee
has been suspended.

The airline declined to release any information on whether the
employee works aboard planes or is a member of the Air Canada ground
team, or about the employee's experience on the job or gender.

Reber said the employee's colleagues at Air Canada were "instrumental
in bringing this matter to the attention of the authorities."

"The employee was suspended, pending further police investigation," Reber said.

"Air Canada has been co-operating fully with this investigation from
the outset.

"It is a police matter so we don't have any additional information to provide."

A 2003 RCMP report identified Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto
airports as so heavily infiltrated by organized crime that the
facilities had become a primary gateway for smuggling drugs into Canada.

Drug trafficking through the airports was so problematic then that
airport seizures accounted for 92 per cent of the heroin, 90 per cent
of the ecstasy, 40 per cent of the cocaine and 40 per cent of the
liquid hashish seized in Canada in 2002, the report noted.

Border agency officers at YVR seized 54 kg of cocaine on a flight
from Mexico in September. The drugs were packed in four suitcases.

Another 50 kg of cocaine was found in two suitcases on a flight from
Mexico in 2006.

Officers also seized two kilos of heroin at the airport in 2006,
arrested one man trying to fly 20 kilos of marijuana to Ontario in
2004 and arrested two men trying to smuggle 65,000 ecstasy pills into
Canada from Europe in March 2003.

Border agency officials at the airport seized 19 kilos of opium in
three shipments in 2003.

Customs officials arrested an Aeroflot pilot in 2005 and charged him
with trying to smuggle 20,000 bogus anti-impotency pills from Moscow
to Toronto.

YVR officials found 706 grams of cocaine and 369 grams of hash in the
wing of a Boeing 767 in 2004.

In 2000, six Air Canada cleaners were charged with smuggling

$8-million worth of cocaine and hashish into Toronto's Pearson
Airport from Jamaica over the course of a year.

Also that year, police in Winnipeg seized drugs concealed in the
walls of Air Canada jets eight times over six months.

A Canada 3000 flight attendant was fired in 1999 for smuggling at
least $1 million in ecstasy pills into Canada from Europe.