REID'S OFFICE RAIDED BY RCMP

Victoria police and the RCMP raided offices of Transportation Minister
Judith Reid and Finance Minister Gary Collins Sunday, taking with them file
boxes of documents to be used in an investigation involving drug and
organized crime investigators.

Search warrants were used to raid the offices at the B.C. legislature,
belonging to ministerial assistants to Collins and Reid.

Jeff Knight in the Nanaimo-Parksville MLA's Victoria office confirmed it
was Bob Virk's (Reid's ministerial assistant) office raided by police.
Collins' ministerial assistant is David Basi.

Knight added Reid is currently out of the country on vacation and had not
commented on the happenings at her office.

According to Vancouver RCMP Sgt. John Ward at a media conference Monday
morning, officers with the drug and organized crime units also searched the
home of one of the assistants.

At the same time, police used warrants to enter two Vancouver homes and the
offices of a private company doing business in Vancouver and Victoria.
Police made clear that neither Reid nor Collins, or any elected officials,
were part of their search warrants.

"...The search warrants that police executed at the B.C. legislature did
not involve any elected provincial politicians in B.C.," Sgt. Ward said.

"In fact, police have received excellent ongoing co-operation from the B.C.
Solicitor General's Ministry and the minister himself."

In his statement Monday, Sgt. Ward said the raids came after an extended
investigation into drug trafficking and organized crime.

"I can state that the (raid) has now occurred, based on two things," said
Sgt. Ward, "...information specifically related to the organized crime /
drug case, and unrelated information that was recently discovered as a
by-product of the 20-month drug and organized crime investigation."

Sgt. Ward added the warrants were based on information stemming from their
20-month-long investigation, stating it might not be directly related to
that case.

He said the long-term investigation itself led to the arrest of nine people
in Victoria, Vancouver, and Toronto, implicated in the sale of B.C.
marijuana to the United States in exchange for cocaine sold in Canada.

"I can say that in general, the spread of organized crime just in the past
two years has been like a cancer on the social and economic well being of
all British Columbians."

Solicitor General Rich Coleman had co-operated with the RCMP and Victoria
police in facilitating the execution of the search warrants Sunday.

Cindy Rose, with the Solicitor General's communications office in the
capital, said Coleman would be making a statement on the matter Monday.

Details of that statement were not available at The News' press time Monday
afternoon.

Phone calls to Judith Reid's Parksville constituency office were not
immediately returned.