Cocaine seizure largest in OPP’s history
ORILLIA — A tip from a member of the public has triggered the largest drug seizure in the history of the Ontario Provincial Police.
The force netted 1,062 kilograms of 97 per cent pure cocaine, which had a wholesale value of $60 million and an estimated street value of $250 million, OPP commissioner Vince Hawkes said Monday at a news conference at OPP headquarters in Orillia.
“This is a massive seizure — bigger than I’ve seen in my 33 years of policing,” Hawkes said.
Armed tactical officers stood guard at the news conference near the wall of multicoloured cocaine bricks on display. There was a further armed guard at the entranceway to the OPP complex.
That cocaine will be destroyed at a secret location, Hawkes said.
“There’s a lot of drugs out there and drugs are killing people.”
“It’s an amazing size seizure,” OPP deputy commissioner Rick Barnum said, adding the investigation is ongoing.
The OPP declined to elaborate on the tip that started the massive operation. “Good information was received,” Barnum said.
The initial arrests were made after a traffic stop of Highway 410 in May. The drug would have been cut down to between 30 and 40 per cent purity before it reached the streets, often with particularly deadly additives like fentanyl, Barnum said.
“With the amount of pure cocaine seized during Project Hope, we’ve stopped many criminals from causing more harm to our communities while removing a quarter of a billion dollars from the criminal economy,” Hawkes said.
The cocaine was smuggled in pallets of building stones.
Most of the stones containing bricks of cocaine had a kilogram hidden inside. The most found in a single stone was six kilograms, Barnum said.
Some of the stones were seized at a stone supply operation in Stoney Creek.
“Certainly the business was set up to be a front or a cover,” Barnum said, adding it wasn’t known where the cocaine was initially produced.
“There are definitely connections to Mexico and the Mexican cartels,” Barnum said.
The OPP are not releasing the amount or value of the cocaine seized in Stoney Creek because the investigation is ongoing, said OPP spokesperson Staff Sgt. Carolle Dionne. For the same reason, the OPP are not naming the storage facility, she said.
Dionne also said the stones in which the cocaine was hidden were ordered under the name of a landscaping company, but police would not give out the name of the business used.
Barnum declined to say who would have distributed the drugs, except to say they are “extremely high-level organized crime groups.”
The cocaine was loaded onto ships in Argentina, destined for the Port of Montreal and then the GTA, Niagara Region and other parts of Canada, police said.
Luis Enrique Karim-Altamirano, 52, of Vaughan has a bail hearing Wednesday. He’s charged with importation of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance for the purposes of trafficking and driving while disqualified.
Mauricio Antonio Medina-Gatica, 36, of Brampton, has been freed on bail after being charged May 1 with importation of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance for the purposes of trafficking.
Iban Orozco-Lomeli, 45, of Toronto was charged July 10 of importation of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance for the purposes of trafficking. He’s also been released on bail.
Toronto Star With files from Carmela Fragomeni, The Hamilton Spectator