RECORD HEROIN BUST

No 'Get Out Of Jail Free' Card In Monopoly Box

Playing a Community Chest card won't get these women out of jail
free.

Manitoba's largest-ever heroin seizure was discovered last week inside
two wooden boxes of the Monopoly nostalgia edition board game, each
wrapped in pretty paper, presented as a Christmas gift, and shipped to
Manitoba from England.

But instead of the familiar thimble, hat and race car game pieces,
customs officials found a vacuum-sealed, one-kilogram package of
powdered heroin inside each box.

"There was no room for the Monopoly left over," said Sgt. Mike Ramsay
of the RCMP D Division drug section in Winnipeg.

The two packages had been shipped by courier from Birmingham, arriving
in Winnipeg on Dec. 9.

"Their final destination, to the best of our knowledge, was British
Columbia," Ramsay said. "Because of the small market for heroin in
Manitoba, the people responsible for moving it around probably thought
we wouldn't be looking for it, so they saw Manitoba as a point to get
it into the country."

They were wrong.

Once customs officers discovered the heroin -- believed to be the
largest seizure in Manitoba history, and the first of heroin. Ramsay
has seen in his seven years on the drug squad -- the packages were
delivered to their addressees, accompanied by police.

Amanda Kuzubeck, 28, of Winnipeg, Tracy Lynne Pongracz, 29, of Stony
Mountain, and Harpreet Kaur Bains, 28, of Surrey, B.C., were all
arrested Wednesday and Thursday.

All three women are charged with trafficking and importing heroin, as
well as conspiring to do so.

Ramsay said the RCMP has contacted Interpol and police in England are
now trying to discover who sent the heroin.

A further two kilograms of heroin, identically packaged and wrapped,
was seized in Memphis, Tenn., on its way to Manitoba from England.

Ramsay said heroin sold at the kilogram level sells for between
$100,000 and $125,000 per kilogram.