IN ECSTASY OVER BUMPER HAUL OF PILLS

Canada Customs and Revenue agents at Dorval airport are "grinning from ear
to ear" this week after confiscating more than $30 million worth of ecstasy
pills - the largest shipment of ecstasy ever seized in Canada.

"This is very rewarding," said Daniel Foucher, co-ordinator of the
airport-based Canada Customs fraud and contraband team.

Foucher said it was a group of alert customs officers who twigged to the
drug shipment last Friday while checking a pallet of boxes being unloaded
from KLM Flight 671, a passenger and cargo flight that originated in the
Netherlands.

Cargo in 24 plastic-wrapped boxes, destined for a textile company in
Montreal, was identified as sheets.

"What caught the attention of our customs agents was that there had been a
(drug) seizure from the same area last year of cargo identified as bed
coverings," Foucher said.

The agents opened the suspect boxes, only to discover many of them empty.
But in eight of the boxes they found 859,889 pills of ecstasy, a synthetic
mood-enhancing drug often associated with all-night dance parties.

Kept Watch

That's four times the number of ecstasy pills seized last December at the
Port of Montreal, in what was then considered the most important ecstasy
bust in Canada. That shipment was destined for a textile company based in
Toronto.

Following Friday night's discovery at Dorval, customs agents tipped off the
RCMP, who kept watch on Saturday when a man came to collect the load.

The courier, who was later arrested in LaSalle, was identified as Patrick
Labonne, 35, a resident of the Mauricie region.

Labonne made a preliminary appearance in court on Monday on three charges:
conspiracy to import illegal drugs for trafficking, importing drugs and
possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking. He remains in custody
and is due back in court tomorrow for a bail hearing.

Corporal Jean Ratte, spokesman for the RCMP drug section in Montreal, said
Labonne doesn't have a criminal record. Ratte declined to identify
Labonne's recently-formed courier service or the textile company involved
in the investigation.

He also said it is too soon to say which criminal organization is behind
the drug shipment. "Illegal biker gangs usually control chemical drug
imports but we've seen it's so profitable that it wouldn't be surprising to
see other kinds of organizations getting involved," he said. He noted that
ecstasy capsules can be produced for as little as 50 cents and sold for as
much as $30 to $40 each on the street.

In Short Supply

Last week's drug seizure is not expected to drive up the already high price
of ecstasy capsules, Ratte said, but it could cause a short-term shortage
in supply.

Foucher said the drug seizure and arrest are only the latest feather in the
caps of customs agents assigned to the airports at Dorval and Mirabel.

The agents seized over $150 million worth of illegal drugs - cocaine,
hashish, steroids and ecstasy, among others - between April 1 last year and
March 31 this year, he said.

"It's evident that there's a lot of profit there for criminal organizations
if we look at the amounts (of money involved)," Foucher said.

It's also clear that Montreal has become a prime import-export hub for
illegal drugs, Ratte said.

"Montreal is a turntable for drugs in North America," he said, noting that
the city's airports, river traffic and proximity to the U.S. make it one of
the major transshipment centres in the area.