POLICEMAN IMPLICATED IN GLOBAL DRUG RING

TORONTO -- A Toronto police officer is accused of using his authority
to assist a multimillion-dollar drug-smuggling operation and a
botched kidnapping plot.

The charges against Constable Ioan-Florin Floria come after a
massive, months-long investigation involving Toronto police and nine
other units in Canada and the United States resulted in the
dismantling of an alleged international drug ring yesterday. Officers
seized millions of dollars in narcotics and arrested two dozen
suspects, many with Eastern European backgrounds.

The focus of the bust - which the Toronto police drug squad
spearheaded in the fall of 2006 - is an alleged Eastern European gang
accused of smuggling marijuana into, and cocaine out of, the United
States. Specifically, the investigation centred on the transportation
of drugs between British Columbia, Ontario and Michigan.

Multiple police forces from all three jurisdictions monitored alleged
gang members closely during the eight-month investigation.

At one point, officers managed to withhold a large shipment of
marijuana from the gang. According to police, some gang members
believed one of their own was responsible for losing the shipment,
and hatched a plot to kidnap that member. It was at that point that
police stepped in.

Yesterday, police in Ontario and British Columbia executed 29 search
warrants, arresting 24 suspects and seizing 1,000 pounds of marijuana
valued at about $3-million. Officers also confiscated $30,000 in
cocaine, three handguns, two stolen vehicles and about half a million
dollars in U.S. and Canadian currency. In all, more than 1,000
charges were laid, and police expect more arrests soon.

Constable Floria, a 34-year-old officer with eight years' experience
in the traffic services division, is accused of using his power as a
police officer to help gang members plan the kidnapping, among other
things. Police allege the constable searched a police database using
other officers' badge numbers to avoid detection, and later
obstructed an investigation into the kidnapping plot.

"One of the more serious threats of organized crime is that they very
often make an effort to compromise and corrupt people in positions of
power and influence in our judiciary and in the police," Toronto
Police Chief Bill Blair said yesterday. "It is worrisome that this
could happen, but I don't believe it's widespread [within the police force]."