TINY MANITOBA RCMP OUTPOST CRAMPS DRUG TRAFFICKERS' STYLE

FALCON LAKE, Man. - The RCMP officer smelled a rat.

The truck driver standing in front of him was clearly nervous as the
officer reviewed his documentation at the roadside weigh station. No
wonder. The trucker's waybills were sketchy on details and his gas
receipts and log book did not add up.

That was enough for Const. Ryan Cadotte, who, along with provincial
weigh scale inspectors, initiated a search of the man's vehicle.

Minutes later the driver was in cuffs and the tiny RCMP detachment in
Falcon Lake, Man., had recorded another in a string of large drug busts.

The battle against drug trafficking is fought on many fronts in
Canada, but one of the surprising success stories is written at a tiny
outpost in the middle of the Canadian Shield where three Mounties are
piling up some eye-popping statistics. In the past 20 months, the
Falcon Lake detachment, with the help of scale inspectors, has scooped
2,180 kilograms of marijuana, 37 kilograms of cocaine and drug money
totalling $700,000 off the highway.

The seizures are nothing short of "huge," says Cpl. Chris Ballard, the
detachment commander. "What we're getting here is amazing ... a very
high number." The drug seizures are impressive considering the size of
the detachment, 125 kilometres east of Winnipeg. The three officers
must police a huge area of cottage country, which can swell to 50,000
people on a busy summer weekend. Still, they manage to find five to
six hours a week to spend at the scales working with inspectors to
halt the flow of contraband.

Cpl. Ballard admits vigilance on the part of inspectors at the scales
is critical in making these busts, but the Falcon Lake detachment has
another powerful ally in its fight to clamp down on drug smugglers.
Truckers must check in at the scales on the Trans-Canada Highway, 12
kilometres east of Falcon Lake, if they want to cross the
Manitoba-Ontario border. And once there, inspectors have you right
where they want you.

"It's a bottleneck," says Cpl. Ballard. "All traffic east and west has
to come through here."

Inspectors at the scales check out thousands of vehicles a month, and
Cpl. Ballard says "the law of averages" are in their favour. "You
inspect enough trucks, and if you know what certain types of
contrabands look like, you're going to notice them."

The drug busts come at a time when smugglers are becoming more
sophisticated in hiding their booty. Many of the drugs are hidden in
tractor-trailer loads of legitimate products.

The scales are normally open 24 hours a day, but truckers rarely know
when they will be closed. So, if they are carrying drugs, they have to
'chance it'.

"I can't share all their (inspectors') secrets with you, but for the
most part they're looking for situations that don't fit," says Cpl.
Ballard. "For example, why would someone ship a load that isn't very
valuable clear across the country, or why would someone carry 30 boxes
that aren't accounted for in bills of lading?"

All the drugs confiscated are east-bound and almost certainly the
product of organized crime. "We're dealing with very large, valuable
quantities of drugs," says Cpl. Ballard. "It wouldn't be shipped
without some kind of organized association to back it up."

So far, the drug busts have been without incident, but Cpl. Ballard
worries about security at the weigh station where inspectors are left
vulnerable in a remote, wooded area. RCMP officers uncovered a loaded
handgun in a vehicle at a recent bust.

"The biggest danger is the unknown," says Ballard. "We don't know the
truckers we're dealing with or the level of desperation involved."

Ballard sees no end in sight. As long as there are drugs, people will
try to smuggle them from one point to another.

"Are we getting it all? Absolutely not," he says. "There's lots more
out there. But we're putting a dent into it. Someone's hurting because
of the work we do here.

"I think what we're telling the bad guys is they're going to have to
be more creative if they want to know with any certainly they can ship
their drugs across Canada."