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A Richmond Hill man was recently sentenced to 166 months in a U.S. prison for smuggling one and a half million dollars worth of ecstacy over the Queenston-Lewiston bridge. That’s just a fraction of the amount of drugs being smuggled in both directions. Police officers from Albuquerque to Yellowknife are meeting in Niagara Falls this week to share information about criminal activity crossing the border.
The arrest of alleged drug kingpin Nick Nero revealed massive amounts of illegal narcotics were being smuggled into Canada. Four hundred kilograms of cocaine per week.
Det. Sgt. Scott Wade, OPP Intelligence: “The reaches of organized crime are vast. Even though the Mexican cartels don’t share a border with Canada it’s coming right through the states and right into Canada.”
Organized crime rings are often busted by officers who share intelligence across the border. In fact, the Canadian, American law enforcement organization or CALEO was formed to do just that.
CALEO was formed 30 years ago by a small group of law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border. They knew that criminals were taking advantage of the fact
that police weren’t sharing information. And that the chances of them being caught were small.
This week, 150 CALEO officers are meeting at the Marriott Gateway Hotel in Niagara Falls. Brian Sallee is one of the keynote speakers — he’s a methamphetamine expert from the Albuquerque police force: “Meth is the fastest growing drug of choice throughout the U.S. It’s a bigger drug problem throughout the world than cocaine and heroin.
It’s not a huge problem in southern Ontario yet. But there have been a few meth lab busts in Niagara region in recent years. A house in Jordan where young children lived, and a barn out in Wainfleet. Meth labs are dangerous to dismantle. The drug itself extremely addictive.
Brian said: “A meth high lasts four times longer than a cocaine high.”
A lot of meth comes from the Mexican drug cartel. And police say the cartel is something we should be concerned about here in Canada.
Scott said: “The drug dealers don’t care about the border. They’re going to go where the profits are.”
We’re talking billions in profit here. Police estimate the cocaine ring allegedly run by Nero was a $2 billion operation. And that’s just one alleged crime group.
