$25M DRUG BUST AT PORT

Seven Arrested After Stash Found In Floorboards Of Ship From
Jamaica

Seven Ontario men were arrested after $25 million in drugs was found
hidden under a container's floorboards on a ship that just arrived at
the Port of Halifax from Jamaica.

Toronto RCMP nabbed the suspects, aged 21 to 51 and from Ajax,
Pickering and Toronto, on Wednesday, a week after Canada Border
Services Agency officers found 500 kilograms of hash oil and 360
kilograms of marijuana inside a container carrying cookies, biscuits
and soft drinks. All the drugs were destined for the Toronto area, the
RCMP said.

Alonzo MacNeil, the Nova Scotia chief of marine operations for the
agency, said investigators checked the shipping manifest, determined
they should check the container and took it to their examination
facility, a Dartmouth warehouse, for a thorough search. He wouldn't
identify the ship that carried the container.

He said paperwork on all shipments is reviewed to identify "high-risk
cargo," and investigators felt this container deserved a closer look,
in part because it came from Jamaica.

"It is known to be a source country for cannabis products, so that
would have been one of our areas of interest," Mr. MacNeil said.

"It's not the sole reason we inspected it, but it would have been one
of them."

That risk-assessment process usually leads agency officers to inspect
about eight containers from a ship carrying up to 500 of them.

After all the container's contents were removed and cleared, during a
Jan. 4 search, the investigators checked the container itself and
discovered a false floor along its 12-metre length.

"It was very well done," he said of the false floor.

"We turned the drugs and the container over to the RCMP for criminal
investigation."

The RCMP reloaded the container - minus the drugs - and placed it on a
train bound for Toronto. The container was delivered to its
destination and the seven arrests were made afterward.

Mr. MacNeil likened the first seizure of the year to "finding the
needle in the haystack."

"A lot of things have to go right," he said.

"It was a very good job by the inspectors."

Ontario RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Michele Paradis said the seizure should
be seen as a victory in police attempts to reduce violence in the
Toronto area.

"Whenever you see the drug trade, then you always see the violence and
the turf wars associated with it," she said.