POLICE OPERATION CRACKS DRUG-FILLED EGGS SCAM

Three Arrested After Heroin, Ecstasy Are Sent From China

Two members of a Scarborough family and their business partner have been charged with heroin trafficking after police seized 57 kilograms of heroin worth $142.5 million and 17 kilograms of ecstasy worth between $1 million and $2 million.

Police believe the drugs are connected with organized crime in China.

The drugs were stashed in replica duck eggs from a food exporting wholesaler in Guandong province in southeast China that belongs to the husband of a Scarborough woman and her son, RCMP investigators said.

The heroin was processed in the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia and was destined for the streets of Canada, police said.

The drug operation is thought to have "loose" connections to the Big Circle Boys, an internationally known criminal organization with ties in Toronto, Vancouver and China, said RCMP Constable Pepin Wong.

The eggs were shipped to Vancouver and then sent to a container investigation centre in Brampton before being confiscated at a Scarborough warehouse last Thursday.

A drug sniffing dog at Canada Customs found the drugs in 1,700 false eggs, part of a 174,000-egg shipment. The eggs are traditionally used in the Chinese autumn moon festival.

Police also seized $1.2 million in cash stashed in two suitcases in a secured storage area in Scarborough. Jewelry, Rolex watches and documents were also seized.

The seizure was part of a year-long operation called Project Occlude by the police Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit that includes members of the RCMP, OPP, Toronto, York, and Peel police and Canada Customs.

Two days after police identified the Toronto shipment, RCMP in Vancouver arrested seven people and seized another shipment from China of 99 kilograms of heroin worth about $104 million, as well as $100,000 in cash stashed in a false-bottomed container.

The three people charged in Toronto were not charged in connection with the Vancouver seizure.

The seizure "demonstrates the vast financial resources organized crime has at its disposal," RCMP Superintendent Ben Soave, head of the combined forces unit, told a Toronto news conference yesterday.

"This clearly supports our strategic direction to develop national priorities based on intelligence, the sharing of that intelligence and the continued development of partnerships that are so vital to any organized crime investigations," he said.

Mark Butler of Canada Customs said his agency had seized only nine kilograms of heroin so far this year before last week's bust.

Four Canadians were arrested in Toronto but one was released.

Wei Hong Sun, 49, her son Zhi Yong Huang, 21, and their business partner Sui Ping Lee, 46, all residents of Alton Towers Circle, have been charged with conspiracy to import heroin, importing heroin and possession of heroin for the purpose of trafficking. No charges have yet been laid on the ecstasy.

They appear at old city hall for a bail hearing on Friday.