Nearly $120 million worth of hashish and a chemical used to make the so-called date rape drug were seized at Pearson International Airport in two separate busts, the RCMP says.
RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson outlined the massive seizures at a news conference on Monday.
The first bust happened after an RCMP liaison officer in Central Asia tipped colleagues off to a large shipment of hash headed to Canada last summer. The 5.7 tons of the drug was hidden in more than 500 hollowed-out wooden boards, each containing 10 kilograms of hash, Paulson said.
The illegal shipment, which originated in Afghanistan and had an estimated street value of $69 million, was seized at Pearson after it had travelled through several countries, including Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Kazakhstan and Germany.
Two men were arrested and charged in Scarborough last October, and another was charged in Kazakhstan. The two men made a court appearance on Friday and their next court date is March 23.
In a separate bust that happened at Pearson on Jan. 25, officers with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) seized 2,900 litres of gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL).
“This seizure is enough precursor to produce approximately 4.8 million doses of the date rape drug with an estimated value of $48 million,” Paulson said.
The chemical arrived in Toronto on a flight from China in boxes containing 25-litre drums labelled as kitchen grease remover.
Last weekend, three GTA men were arrested in connection to that bust.
Paulson described these arrests and drug seizures as prime examples of “core policing.”
“Gathering evidence, putting dope in the locker, catching crooks, and putting them before the courts — that’s the RCMP Canadians take pride in and that’s the RCMP Canadians expect,” he said.
Paulson also stressed the importance of the federal force’s partnerships with international agencies.
“We recognize that our country is increasingly interconnected with the rest of the world and that we must look beyond our borders to where the threats originate,” he said.
News of these busts came after the RCMP and CBSA announced they’d seized 20 kilograms of cocaine hidden in hollowed-out fruit in a shipment that arrived at Pearson from Guyana earlier this month. Four people from the GTA were charged.
The investigation into drug smuggling using fruit started when the RCMP seized a marine container in Saint John, N.B., in August with 19 kilograms of cocaine found in hollowed-out pineapples. Months later, authorities also seized 115 kilograms of marijuana at the Windsor-Detroit border that was hidden in a shipment of watermelon on two trucks.
Police said those cases had ties to Jamaica, Costa Rica and the United States.