POLICE SHATTER MASSIVE CROSS-BORDER DRUG RING

CALGARY -- A multimillion-dollar network that saw drugs trucked from Canada
into three U.S. cities has been dismantled and arrests made in the Calgary
area, Vancouver and Los Angeles.

"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,"
Insp. Joe Loran of Alberta's Integrated Response to Organized Crime said.

"Partnerships were established with the RCMP Vancouver drug section and the
California Inland Crackdown Allied Task Force. Once links were established
there were independent investigations.

"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 the exportation of
methamphetamine, ephedrine and marijuana 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 using commercial trucks to ferry the drugs to and from
the U.S.

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

That seizure, and another in April, netted close to 20 kilograms of
methamphetamine, 50 kg of ephedrine, two kg of cocaine and a half kg 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,
Mission, Los Angeles and Bakersfield, Calif. since March.

The police operation also saw the seizure of 17 kilograms of cocaine in Del
Bonita, Alta., 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 -- a legal pharmaceutical product -- can be
obtained more readily than the U.S.

Todd Joseph Holland, 32, of Calgary; Kenneth Leslie Douglass, 56, of
Drumheller, Alta.; Robert Craig Friedman, 39, of Los Angeles; Robert Nicky
Dellapenna, 34, and Robert Luigi Poloni, 37, both of Vancouver, each face
one or more drug-related charges.

More charges are expected to be laid.