MAJOR DRUG SUPPLY NETWORK DISRUPTED

Police have shut down an international, multimillion-dollar crime network
that allegedly supplied groups like the Hells Angels with drugs and used gas
tanks to truck illegal substances across the Canada-U.S. border.

Arrests in three cities, including several in the Calgary area, were carried
out a week ago today by investigators working as part of a joint-police
operation. They swooped in on two houses in Calgary and Rosedale, 145
kilometres northeast of the city, while a third suspect was picked up
outside a bank. Two other men were arrested in Vancouver.

"The group's operations extended across Canada and into the U.S. with the
majority of the activity being based in Alberta, Vancouver and California,"
said Insp. Joe Loran of Alberta's Integrated Response to Organized Crime.

The Alberta team partnered with Vancouver RCMP and the California Inland
Crackdown Allied Task Force.

"The joint investigations were more efficient than any one of them would
have been on their own," Loran said.

The investigation, which began in March, focused on methamphetamine,
ephedrine and marijuana exports to the U.S. The drugs were then sold or
traded for cocaine, for importation and distribution in Canada.

The operation was allegedly supplying drugs to other organized crime groups,
including the Hells Angels.

"The purpose of the methamphetamine and the ephedrine was to take it into
the U.S. and use it (to buy) cocaine," said Loran.

The suspects were allegedly using commercial trucks to ferry the drugs to
and from the U.S.

A seizure west of Calgary at the Jumping Pound weigh scales on July 21
uncovered drugs concealed in a secret compartment in a truck's gas tank. The
truck was en route from the Vancouver area to the U.S.

That seizure and another east of the city in April netted close to 20
kilograms of methamphetamine, 50 kilograms of ephedrine, two kilograms of
cocaine and half a kilogram of marijuana.

The drugs are worth an estimated $2 million on the street and investigators
say the large quantity of methamphetamine "in itself is a very significant
seizure."

A total of 50 kilograms of cocaine, 11 kilograms of marijuana, 5,000 plants
and approximately $1 million in cash were found in Vancouver, Chilliwack and
Mission, B.C., and Los Angeles and Bakersfield, Calif., since March.

The police operation also resulted in the seizure of 17 kilograms of cocaine
in Del Bonita, near the Alberta-Montana border, in December 2003. Numerous
assets, including houses and vehicles, will also be seized.

Insp. Ian Cameron, director of the Criminal Intelligence Service Alberta,
says methamphetamine use and production is on the rise in Alberta, where its
main ingredient -- ephedrine, which has legal uses -- can be obtained more
readily than the U.S.

"There's no good regulatory regime handling the distribution and possession
of the precursor chemicals used in the production of meth," said Cameron,
referring to the Canadian controls. "It is possible for people with ulterior
motives to get their hands on all these types of chemicals."