POLICE BUST INTERNATIONAL DRUG RING

$95M in Drugs Seized

Police in three provinces seized more than $95-million worth of high-demand
drugs and arrested dozens of men and women who allegedly co-operated to
bring the immense haul into Canada by air, land and sea.

Heralding the operation as one of the widest police dragnets against
organized crime in Canada, police officials say they dismantled four crime
groups in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto and Hamilton that allegedly worked to
bring cocaine and hashish along a complicated path from South America and
the Caribbean to Canadian streets.

"We have arrested over 35 individuals, all significant players at all
levels in their criminal network -- these were the upper echelons, the
importers, the facilitators, the dealers," said RCMP Inspector Linda Martell.

Arrested yesterday were employees at the port in Halifax, a union member
who unloads the ships, a prominent associate of the Hells Angels motorcycle
gang in Quebec, a man with links to Mafia groups in Ontario, several career
criminals, others with no criminal past and people ranging in age from 22
to 71.

The diverse group represents the new face of organized crime, police said.

"Organized crime is no longer working in isolated groups," said Insp. Martell.

"They work in what we have coined a virtual floating matrix. A complex
infrastructure of networks and contacts that can work anywhere, anytime.

"They gather expertise from their resource pool, depending on the type of
criminal enterprise they need to facilitate. They disperse when their goal
is achieved and gather again, often times with different players."

The operation, announced with news conferences in Montreal, Halifax and
Hamilton, pulls together a number of drug seizures from the last 18 months
that police now say are intertwined.

There was cocaine and hash oil arriving from Jamaica aboard a small
corporate jet that landed near Barrie, Ont.; there were huge bags of
Colombian cocaine hidden in commercial containers arriving at the Halifax
port; hash oil and marijuana found in a van stopped at midnight on a New
Brunswick highway; and marijuana loaded on trucks in Quebec heading for the
United States.

The operators had links to major drug barons in Colombia, Panama, Jamaica
and Mexico, including Abraham Nasser, the alleged Colombian supplier, who
is now wanted in Canada, police said.

Much of the cocaine, loaded into large hockey bags and designer suitcases,
was smuggled into commercial shipping containers, likely during stopovers
in Panama, on large ships that left from Chile, said Roy Jamieson, with
Canada Customs and Revenue Agency.

After arriving in Halifax, it was intended to be smuggled off the docks,
but Customs officials became suspicious of the containers and ordered a
search, he said. Bags of cocaine were found among a shipment of carved wood
planks.

More cocaine was to be smuggled into Canada aboard trucks to be driven from
Mexico through the United States, an unusual route for traffickers who
usually move drugs from Canada to the larger U.S. market.

Yesterday, police showed off part of their haul.

Cocaine, compressed into hundreds of one-kilo bricks that were branded with
a symbol of its Columbian manufacturer -- a horseshoe on most, a triangle
with three diamonds on others -- was under heavy guard at the RCMP's
Hamilton office.

Each brick had been wrapped in multiple layers of cellophane wrap, plastic
bags, rubber sheets and packing tape to keep them dry if they had to be
dumped overboard during their sea voyage, police said.

If it had reached its destination, the cocaine would have been "stepped on"
by the dealers, a term for diluting the narcotic with inert powder to
enhance profits during street sales.

The hash, looking and feeling like fruit cake, was similarly encased.

All told, police seized approximately 314 kilograms of high-grade cocaine
with a street value estimated by police at $75,600,000; 424 kilos of
hashish valued at $10,580,000; 670 kilos of marijuana valued at $5,557,000;
3,700 marijuana plants worth $3.7 million; 156 kilos of hash oil valued at
$280,000.

Officers seized several houses, jewellery, gem stones, gold, furniture,
cars, heavy duty mechanical equipment and both Canadian and U.S. cash, all
of it valued at more than $8-million, police say.

Among those arrested are Steven "Bull" Bertrand, an associate of Maurice
"Mom" Boucher, the notorious Quebec Hells Angels leader now in prison for
ordering the murder of two prison guards.

Police allege Dean Roberts, 37, of Pierrefonds, Que., and Paul Gravelle,
55, of Hamilton, were among the ringleaders.

Police described Mr. Roberts as "a door," referring to his alleged ability
to arrange various elements of a smuggling operation.

Mr. Gravelle, has a long history of involvement in drug importation with
convictions in Canada and the U.S., but once claimed police unfairly pick
on him: "They make me out to be like Al Capone," he said.

The success of the operation stems from a special effort joint agencies are
making to attack the point of entry for drugs rather than merely the street
sales, said Staff Sergeant Jean-Pierre Boucher, of the Montreal Drug
Section of the RCMP.

Ken Robertson, Chief of Police in Hamilton, who has spent much of his
35-year career targeting organized crime, said this is the largest haul of
drugs he has seen.

"This is a great day for the good guys," he said.