SURREY OFFICE RAIDED IN ANTI-DRUG SWEEP

Twelve Arrested As Seven Drug Laboratories Are Discovered In Fraser Valley,
Kelowna

Police officers battered their way into a Surrey business office Tuesday as
part of a province-wide clampdown on illegal drug laboratories that led to
the arrest of a dozen people.

Seven methamphetamine laboratories were discovered in the Fraser Valley and
Kelowna, and police seized a quantity of ecstasy and marijuana at the
Surrey location.

Police said all 12 arrests were part of an investigation into organized
crime links to the production and distribution of methamphetamine and
ecstasy pills. (Methamphetamine and ecstasy are different drugs, although
both are considered "uppers.")

Besides the business office in Surrey's industrial Port Kells area,
residences in Chilliwack and Abbotsford were also entered under three
search warrants executed Tuesday in the Fraser Valley.

Organized Crime Agency media spokeswoman Detective Constable Anne Drennan
said six people were arrested at the two residences and business office.

Drennan said charges against the six arrested will be announced later this
week.

Methamphetamine labs were found in the two residences, while the business
location at 9347-193rd St. in Surrey yielded nearly 1,000 ecstasy pills, a
quantity of powder believed to be ecstasy, a supply of marijuana and a
handgun with ammunition.

In Kelowna, RCMP officers shut down five suspected labs and arrested six
additional people.

Kelowna RCMP Constable Garth Letcher said the investigation began in
September 2000 after police received reports of gang activities in the drug
trade.

"There was a considerable amount of inter-agency cooperation throughout
B.C. and western Canada to get to this point," Letcher said Tuesday.

The five men and one woman arrested in Kelowna will likely be charged with
the production, distribution and trafficking of methamphetamine, Letcher said.

While police had no trouble entering the homes in Chilliwack and
Abbotsford, Drennan said the entrance to the Surrey business office was
securely locked.

"It was decided the safest and easiest way to get in was to use a battering
ram we have attached to a Chevy Suburban," she said.

But the parking lot of the business office was too cramped for the Suburban
to turn, so two officers used hand battering poles to knock out the glass
window and doors.

Workers in the Surrey industrial area were surprised Tuesday morning to see
police with battering rams near their offices.

Rich Harvey, a dry kiln operator at the Drytech Lumber warehouse across the
street, said colleagues at his workplace planned to call police months ago.

"We noticed that nothing happened there during the day, but at night
between midnight and 3 a.m., all these motorcycles showed up," Harvey said.

"We were going to call, but things got busy here and we put it off."