`I'M ECSTATIC,' SAYS $60 MILLION DRUG BUST OFFICER

Routine traffic stop turns into huge ecstasy seizure

Two men arrested by rookie at Sheppard and McCowan

A routine traffic stop by a rookie police constable led to the largest
seizure of domestically produced ecstasy in Canada, says Toronto
police Chief Julian Fantino.

After stopping a minivan for having an expired validation sticker
early Friday, Constable John Linney spotted a small plastic bag filled
with a white substance, and arrested the vehicle's two occupants on
possible drug possession charges.

Fantino said further investigation led to the seizure of more than 200
kilograms of liquid and powdered ecstasy at a house in Markham and a
storage facility in Scarborough. The street value is pegged at between
$50 million and $60 million.

"This is probably the largest seizure made of ecstasy that we know of
in this country," Fantino told a news conference yesterday. Linney,
34, stopped the car around 2 a.m. on Sheppard Ave. E., near Shorting
Rd., just east of McCowan Rd.

Linney, who has been a police officer less than three years, was alone
when he spotted the Voyager van. "I'm ecstatic," he said of the
arrests, while standing with Fantino and Staff Inspector Dan Hayes,
head of Toronto's drug squad.

"This is definitely the most exciting thing other than my marriage
that has ever happened to me," Linney said. "It's the largest thing
that's ever happened to me in my young career."

Drug squad officers in Toronto and York found some 161 kilograms of
powdered MDMA or ecstasy, 42 kilograms of liquid ecstasy, $6,000 in
U.S. and Canadian currency, and heroin worth $53,000.

They also seized chemicals that could be used to produce more ecstasy
worth tens of millions of dollars, Fantino said.

"When we talk about the dollar value of the drugs on the street is not
an adequate reflection of the importance of what we have done here,"
Fantino said. "You have to think about the very significant impact
these drugs have in our community and on our young people
especially."

Hayes said investigators had no inkling that an ecstasy-producing lab
on this scale had been set up in the Greater Toronto Area.

"Somewhere out there is a lab that's producing these drugs," he
said.

Kai Wing Tang, 26 and Wai Chung Ng, 25, both of Markham, are facing
drug possession and trafficking charges.