A ton of cocaine hidden in concrete

Photo courtesy of the Ontario provincial Police
Here is a part of the drug seizure at the port of Montreal, last spring.

Éric Thibault

Tuesday, 29 August, 2017 06:30

UPDATE
Tuesday, 29 August, 2017 06:30

Look at this article

The organized crime has imported millions of doses of cocaine at the port of Montreal during three years in hiding the drugs into the concrete until the police ontario, discovered the pot aux roses this spring.

It is interesting to traffickers from the Toronto area, the Ontario provincial Police (OPP) has updated this ingenious stratagem during a survey conducted between the months of march and July.

The record is impressive, with seized records of 1062 kilos of cocaine, mostly in containers and a warehouse at the port of Montreal. Three Ontarians have been charged.

Deprived of $250 million

“This is the largest seizure I’ve seen in my 33-year career. We just deprive criminals of high level of a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue by preventing the drug from reaching our streets, “said commissioner Vince Hawkes, yesterday, by revealing the details of the” project Hope “.

Photo courtesy of the Ontario provincial Police

Vince Hawkes
Patron of the OPP

The drugs arrived at the port of Montreal aboard cargo ships from Argentina before being distributed ” across the country “, according to the OPP.

The bricks of one kilo of cocaine each were hidden inside of rocks, concrete, themselves scattered in pallets of wood stacked on top of each other in containers of 40 feet long.

Well hidden

“It was very difficult, if not impossible to find. The tracking dogs of the border services Agency of Canada have never been able to detect before it is known that there were, “said the deputy commissioner of the OPP, Rick Barnum, adding that the security forces have achieved a “good pipe” to unlock their research.

Photo courtesy of the Ontario provincial Police

The bricks of cocaine that are in these bags and these boxes were camouflaged in rocks of concrete (mortise) from Argentina.

He added that this scheme had been going on for 2014, ” according to the information obtained by the Office for combating organized crime of the OPP, which has required the assistance of any police force in quebec for this survey.

“It is definitely connected to the cartels of Mexico’s drug “, assured the officer Barnum.

The latter was not able to say if the buyers of these massive quantities of cocaine were the Hells Angels, the Italian mafia or another major group of canadian organized crime.

This survey comes to confirm that the port of Montreal – where the clan Matticks and the gang of the West have long exercised their control, according to the police, is still vulnerable to the importation of drugs.

The leaders of the OPP, however, did not specify whether the investigation had demonstrated the collusion between the employees of the port and this network of traffickers.

The degree of purity of 1062 kg of cocaine seized in the framework of this survey was 97 %. This quantity would have been able to give up to 3183 kg to 3000 doses per kilo – after the drug cut off and sold on the street market, where the purity of the “coke” is reduced to 30 % or 40 % “in order to” maximize profits ” of traffickers, said the deputy commissioner of police of ontario, Rick Barnum.