RCMP OFFICER CHARGED WITH TRAFFICKING MARIJUANA

HALIFAX -- An RCMP officer in Halifax who had a knack for sniffing out drug
dealers has been charged with drug trafficking.

Const. Joseph Daniel Ryan, 31, a longtime member of an RCMP street team, a
two-man plainclothes unit that concentrates on street-level drug dealers,
was arraigned yesterday on one count of selling marijuana.

A member of the RCMP for almost six years, Ryan was charged with one count
of trafficking marijuana. He has been suspended with pay.

RCMP major crime and plainclothes officers were involved in the
investigation, but the force refuses to say much about the circumstances of
the arrest.

A source said about 1.3 kilograms of marijuana were seized in the Halifax
bust Wednesday.

"The information regarding this allegation came to us a short time ago and
because of the seriousness of the allegations, . . . we acted upon it right
away," said Sgt. Wayne Noonan, the RCMP's provincial spokesperson, said
yesterday.

Ryan has spent his entire career with the 40-member Tantallon RCMP
detachment outside Halifax.

Although its members remained anonymous, the street team has received
extensive coverage in recent years. It racked up millions of dollars
annually in drug seizures.

Speaking to reporters at RCMP headquarters in Halifax, Noonan would not say
whether the arrest has compromised investigations the street team conducted.

"It would be premature for me to say anything about that right now. I don't
really know, I guess, is my best answer," he said.

Officials with the Public Prosecution Service of Nova Scotia and the
federal Justice Department, which prosecuted many of Ryan's cases, were
reluctant to say whether any of the street team's cases should be
reinvestigated.

"We're going to look at what information there is and thoroughly examine
whether or not a further review needs to be done," said Glenn Chamberlain,
the federal Justice Department's spokesperson.

With Ryan as a guiding force, the street team has made hundreds of busts.

They included everything from the arrest of an alleged small-time drug
dealer at a local landfill to a raid on a $1.3-million indoor growing
operation at a Halifax home.