HASH MARK

On Day Feds Announce Funds For Increased Security At Port, Record Drug
Seizure Revealed

Customs officers won't say why they picked a shipping container supposedly
filled with cotton bales and cat food to be closely inspected, but they're
glad they did.

The cat food and cotton concealed a 11.5-tonne haul of hashish bound for
Toronto.

At roughly the weight of two elephants, it's the largest amount of hash
seized by Canada Customs and Revenue Agency officers in Atlantic Canada,
and the biggest narcotics seizure by volume in the port of Halifax.

The hash was seized last Friday, but the find was only made public
yesterday, coinciding with an announcement by the federal government that
it 's pouring $172.5 million into port security.

New technology helped uncover the stash of hash. A mobile gamma-ray scanner
— a $2-million truck with a moveable arm moves along containers, scanning
the interior like an X-ray machine on wheels — confirmed suspicions about
the shipment.

Customs officials in Halifax only received the truck in December, and have
just begun to use it for searches.

"It's certainly impressive," said customs spokesman Roy Jamieson.

The hash has a street value estimated by customs officials at $210 million.

Customs officers won't say which ship brought the container to Halifax, or
which terminal — Fairview Cove or Halterm — received the cargo. The
container, from Pakistan, arrived by way of Hong Kong and Italy.

A group of customs officers, called a targeting team, selected the
container for closer inspection and ordered it to be "unstuffed" at the
Canada Customs and Revenue Agency facility in Dartmouth's Burnside
Industrial Park.

The mobile scanner confirmed the presence of drugs in the cargo, and
inspectors unloaded the container. They found boxes wrapped in heavy
plastic, containing brightly wrapped slabs of dark hashish, each stamped
with the words "Night Cristal."

The hash was turned over to the RCMP, which is continuing the
investigation. No charges have been laid.

Targeting teams typically examine waybills and documents accompanying a
shipment for inconsistencies, and decide whether the cargo needs closer
inspection.

On an average day in the port, about 40 to 50 containers are targeted, and
roughly 15 or 20 are given a closer physical inspection. That could range
from an examination of the outside to looking at the contents, or it could
mean unloading the container.

Busted! Recent drug seizures off Nova Scotia

August 2001: RCMP officers nab 2.5 tonnes of hash worth $25 million while
smugglers unload it near Tangier, just west of Sheet Harbour.

August 2000: Customs agents in Aulds Cove, Antigonish Co., find 54.2
kilograms of cocaine hidden in the hull of a Venezuelan ship.

October 1996: Cheticamp RCMP seize 10 tonnes of hashish on a yacht off Cape
Breton.

March 1994: Customs agents in Halifax find 752 kilograms of cocaine worth
more than $150 million packaged in cases of pineapple rings in a
Montreal-bound container.

February 1994: The destroyer HMCS Terra Nova apprehends the freighter
Pacifico off Shelburne. Police seize 5.9 tonnes of cocaine worth $1.2 billion.

July 1990: RCMP seize 27.7 tonnes of hashish with a street value of $335
million from two boats and a number of rental trucks at Baleine, near
Louisbourg.

May 1990: Mounties find 35 tonnes of hash, worth about $400 million,
submerged in waterproof bags under a wharf in Ragged Harbour, Queens C