TRACKING COCAINE IN A CAN

After Tip From U.S. Customs, RCMP Follow Shipment To Local Company's Warehouse

Call it the case of the tapeworm-killing cocaine.

The RCMP are baffled by a mysterious shipment of 300 kilograms of
cocaine laced with heavy doses of a chemical additive used by
veterinarians to kill tapeworms in domestic animals.

"We don't know if it's dangerous to humans, but it shows you just
don't know what's in illegal drugs," RCMP Cpl. Luc Bessette told The Gazette.

It's not only the chemical additives that worry the RCMP. It's who
smuggled the Colombian cocaine into Montreal and how much cocaine
might have been spirited in through earlier shipments.

The RCMP discovered the drugs in November inside three blue drums
that were part of a shipment of 216 barrels of lubricating oil.

Their investigation indicates there were four or five similar
shipments of oil into the city last year from Venezuela that might
also have contained large amounts of Colombian cocaine, Bessette said.

The November shipment was destined for Olco Petroleum Group Inc.,
based in east-end Montreal, according to the bill of lading. The
Venezuelan shipper was Gran Lacteos de Venezuela.

Olco officials have denied any knowledge of the cocaine, Bessette said.

But Olco wasn't the final destination of the shipment. According to
the RCMP, Olco purchased the shipment on behalf of a small lubricant
wholesaler called Canadian Lubricant Products.

Its president is Franco Nardone. Nardone used to be a building
contractor. He went into the oil business in March 2002 with a
company named 9114-9633 Quebec Inc. He changed the firm's name to
Canadian Lubricant Products in May 2005.

Questioned by The Gazette, Nardone denied any knowledge of the
cocaine shipment.

"I don't know what it's about," he said.

"I was informed by some police officer from the RCMP who came
knocking at my door, saying: 'Somebody is using your place to import
drugs.' That's all I know.

"I know they did an investigation or whatever they are doing, and I
suppose they will get to the bottom or whatever they're doing."

Nardone said he buys all his oil from Olco. It is recycled oil that
can be used in two-stroke engines for lawn mowers or chainsaws, he said.

He refused to say how many shipments he has purchased.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I can't answer any of your questions," he said before
hanging up.

Nardone said he had only a vague idea that the oil came from Venezuela.

"I'm buying oil. That's what I'm buying, I'm buying oil."

According to police, however, Olco president Mark Kaneb told them he
ordered the oil shipments on Nardone's behalf and it was Nardone who
organized the shipment.

Olco didn't even know about the November oil shipment until it was
already at sea, Bessette said. Olco accepted the oil and paid the
freight and customs only as a favour for Nardone, he added.

Olco is an independent gasoline retailer with 171 outlets in Quebec
and 123 in Ontario. The company was privatized last year by Kaneb,
its principal shareholder.

The RCMP seized the drugs following a tipoff from U.S. Customs, Bessette said.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration put out a bulletin last year
saying sources told them Colombians were shipping cocaine in oil
barrels, he said.

When customs officials in Newark, N.J., spotted the two shipping
containers of oil drums destined for Canada, they alerted the RCMP.

The shipment arrived in Boucherville on Nov. 2; the RCMP watched it
for two weeks.

When nobody came to pick it up, Canada Customs agents secretly
X-rayed the shipment on Nov. 19 and found the three barrels stuffed
with one-kilogram packets of cocaine.

They put the barrels back in the two containers - minus the cocaine.
On Nov. 23, an independent trucker delivered them to Olco. On Nov.
24, Nardone trucked them to his warehouse.

The cocaine was only 71-per-cent pure, Bessette said, as it had been
cut with, among other substances, tetramisole hydrochloride, a
chemical used by veterinarians to kill tapeworms in domestic animals.
The one-kilogram bricks of cocaine were pressure-stamped with the
image of a horse or a duck.

The oil was of poor quality and did not meet Canadian standards, Olco
engineer George Karawani told The Gazette.

He also said he wasn't sure what Nardone was doing with the oil,
other than warehousing it, because Nardone never sold any of it.

Karawani said Kaneb, Olco's owner, told him last year to try to sell the oil.

"My boss said, 'This guy (Nardone) isn't capable of selling them (the
barrels of oil). You'll have to sell them.' "

Karawani said he has been selling them at the rate of one barrel a
week to a company that reblends and refines the oil.

Kaneb did not return phone calls.

Venezuelan police are investigating the oil company that shipped the
drums, Bessette said.

On Dec. 29, Spanish police seized a similar shipment of 2,000
kilograms of cocaine hidden in oil drums, he added. The shipment
originated in Venezuela, travelled by ship to Amsterdam and then was
trucked to Madrid, where police grabbed it.

Drug smugglers are known to use legitimate companies to ship their
dope, Bessette said. The companies are not always aware of it.

The RCMP investigation continues.

Drugs arrived here in disguise

In 2000, the RCMP seized a shipment of 1,000 kilograms of hashish,
which was hidden in a container loaded with boxes of five-kilogram
bricks of Belgium chocolate.

In 1996, six tonnes of hashish were found, wrapped in bales of wool
packed together in a container the size of a semi-truck trailer.

In 1995, two tonnes of hashish, concealed in mushroom cans, were seized.