NINE NABBED AFTER MOUNTIES SEIZE BOATLOAD OF COKE

HALIFAX ­ A year-long international police operation has dismantled a major
cocaine smuggling ring after a boatload of narcotics was seized near a tiny
coastal village east of Halifax on Monday night. The RCMP say the 15-metre
sailing vessel Friend Ship sailed from Antigua carrying more than 500
kilograms of high-quality South American cocaine bound for the Canadian
markets.

Nine people face a number of charges related to the drug bust, dubbed
Project Columbie by the Montreal Mounties spearheading the operation.

Heavily armed RCMP officers in black, rigid-hull inflatable boats gave the
Friend Ship anything but a friendly reception when they intercepted the
vessel about 10 kilometres offshore near White Islands.

The Mounties intercepted the sail boat from the Canadian Coast Guard vessel
Edward Cornwallis. Friend Ship was probably tracked to the coast by
Canadian Navy ships and long-range patrol aircraft.

Friend Ship was towed into Halifax Harbour on Monday night and placed under
heavy guard at the naval dockyard where RCMP officers were carefully
searching the boat, looking for booby traps and removing the ship's cargo.

Police said the cocaine was intended to be off-loaded in the village of
Moser River, about 90 kilometres east of Halifax near Sheet Harbour.

From there, the drugs would be distributed across Canada, most likely to
the lucrative markets in Toronto and Montreal.

Police estimate the value of the drugs at more than $18 million.

Mounties searched a residence in Moser River, suspecting the home was
intended to hide the drugs before distribution.

It's not known if the owners of the house are local residents.

The operation started more than a year ago when police in Montreal learned
a group of Quebec residents were conspiring with South American cocaine
suppliers to smuggle tonnes of drugs from the Caribbean and South America
into Canada and England.

Friend Ship left Antigua on June 23. Its first stop was Nova Scotia.

"That was its destination," said RCMP spokeswoman Const. Marie-Veronique
Bourque.

"(The cocaine) would probably go to other provinces from there."

Bourque called the bust a "major operation" that involved the co-operation
of several government agencies in Canada, Antigua and the French
authorities on the Caribbean island of St. Martin.

The bust is the second major cocaine seizure in Nova Scotia in less than week.

Customs agents discovered about 83 kilograms of cocaine stuffed into duffel
bags secured to the hull of a ship delivering coal to Sydney last Wednesday.

Police say the two seizures aren't connected.

Two of the accused appeared before Halifax provincial court Judge Pam
Williams yesterday afternoon before being taken to Montreal by RCMP.

Martin Patry and Jaime Soler Alfonso are both charged with conspiring to
import cocaine into Canada.

The proceedings were translated into French for Patry, who is from Quebec.