A drug ring that used couriers, including a Guyanese, to smuggle cocaine into Canada in Bibles and other religious books during the busy Christmas season has been smashed by customs officers at Pearson airport, according to a report in the Toronto Sun.
Published on December 24, the article said that two couriers were arrested in separate incidents this month after more than Canadian $850,000 ($172M) in drugs were found in holy books packed in luggage entering the country on flights from the Caribbean, Customs officials confirmed on Saturday.
“This is not something we see on a regular basis,” the Sun reported Patrizia Giolti of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) as saying. “Bibles are what people read for spiritual support and not for smuggling drugs.’
According to the article, Giolti said a 21-year-old visitor from Barbados was arrested Dec. 11 after four kilograms of coke worth Cdn$550,000 was found in the binding of a Bible and other books.
Another 21-year-old man, who claimed to be visiting from St. Vincent, was arrested a day later arriving from Guyana with 2.5 kilos of coke worth about Cdn$310,000 inside a Bible and in the false bottom of a suitcase, the article said. “The covers of the Bibles are unglued or slit and drugs in flat plastic bags are placed inside,” the article reported the CBSA official as saying. Giolti said officers became suspicious because the books were heavier than normal.
The article said that both men have been charged with importing a controlled substance and are before the courts, facing deportation to the Caribbean if convicted. According to the Sun report, their names have not been released due to an ongoing probe.