POLICE SMASH U.S.-CANADA DRUG RING

Joint Probe Disrupts Cross-Border Trade Of Cold Medication Used To Make Speed

TORONTO and WASHINGTON -- Eleven people from Quebec and Ontario are among
65 charged after an 18-month cross-border inquiry into the distribution of
a cold medication used to manufacture speed.

The investigation, known as Operation Northern Star, is the latest effort
to crack down on the pseudoephedrine trade, and its results were announced
yesterday by the RCMP in Montreal and the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration in Washington.

Pseudoephedrine is legally used in cold medication, but can be cooked into
illegal methamphetamines, which are sold on the streets as speed.

Until recently, the substance was tightly controlled in the United States
but loosely controlled in Canada.

New Canadian regulations, which made the unlicensed export of
pseudoephedrine punishable by up to 10 years in jail, came into effect Jan. 9.

This followed complaints last year from Washington, which said Canadian
companies were profiting from the lax rules and feeding a cross-border
trade run by gangs the United States said were using the proceeds to
finance terror groups.

Defence lawyers of previously arrested suspects have said there is no
evidence to link the pseudoephedrine trade to terrorism.

Tonnes of the tiny white pills have been discovered to have crossed the
border unlabelled and undeclared, often hidden in trucks full of bottled
water or bubble gum.

Thousands of kilograms of pseudoephedrine were seized, the agencies said.

The quantity shipped through Ottawa alone could have produced 300 million
individual doses of speed, said RCMP Inspector Larry Tremblay.

"This investigation was an international effort targeting organizations
that smuggled pseudoephedrine directly from corporations in Canada into the
United States through the Detroit-Windsor border crossing," the DEA said in
a news release.

"Today, you have witnessed the power of integrated policing," said Raf
Souccar, RCMP director-general for drugs and organized crime.

"As criminal organizations do not respect borders, it takes true
co-operation between law enforcement in our respective countries to bring
transnational criminal organizations to justice."

As part of the investigation, agents targeted six executives from the
Canadian chemical companies G.C. Medical Products, Formulex and Frega Inc.,
the DEA said.

Charges include conspiring to export pseudoephedrine to the United States.

The RCMP said quantities of pseudoephedrine were stockpiled in Montreal and
Ottawa. U.S. authorities say brokers in Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit and
Los Angeles arranged for bulk shipments from Canada, mostly through Detroit.

Most of the 65 people charged are from the United States.