Canada’s Border Services Agency has seized 170 kgs of cocaine hidden in wooden pallets used to transport food from Guyana.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation today said that the cocaine was seized in two separate drug busts at the Port of Saint John, New Brunswick.
It quoted the Canada Border Services Agency as saying that the drugs have an estimated street value of more than Cdn$21 million. It said that the shipping containers were destined for the Toronto area.
Questions will be raised immediately as to whether the cocaine was stashed in Guyana and then exported as has previously been the case in finds in New Brunswick. Marketwire is reporting that both shipments came from Guyana.
CBC said that eight Ontario men, ranging in age from 31 to 70, have been charged with importing, conspiracy to import and possession for the purpose of trafficking, according to the RCMP.
“This is a very significant seizure here in our region,” Andrew LeFrank, regional director general for CBSA, Atlantic region, stated in a release.
“We have kept hundreds of thousands of doses of this dangerous drug off our streets, and kept the profits out of the pockets of drug smugglers,” he said, according to CBC.
CBC said that on May 29 during a secondary examination of a marine container, CBSA officers employing X-ray technology found anomalies with the wooden pallets in a shipment of sauces, seasonings and noodles destined for Mississauga.
The pallet boards had been hollowed out and filled with bags of cocaine, totalling about 121 kilograms.
CBC said that five men have been charged in connection with that seizure and are scheduled to appear in court on July 9. OyeTimes listed the names of those charged as follows: 40-year-old James Joseph Buttazzoni and 41-year-old Gary Glen Ramoutar, both from Toronto, 37-year-old Rampersaud Ramlall of Whitby, Ontario, 50-year-old Lawrence Fitzpatrick Dalloo of Ottawa, and 31-year-old Sean Mohammed Hussain of Mississauga.
Then on June 5, CBC said that border services officers discovered similar concealment in another shipment of food products destined for a business area in North York and 49 kilograms of cocaine was seized.
Three men have been charged in that case and are scheduled to appear in court in Toronto today. OyeTimes listed the names of the accused as follows: 57-year-old Joseph Compton Grant-Stuart, 56-year-old Ephraim Agustus Grant-Stuart, and 70-year-old Dennis Andrew Grant-Stuart, all of Toronto. They have all been charged with importing narcotics, conspiracy to import cocaine and trafficking cocaine, the report said.
Last year, RCMP and border officials intercepted cocaine-stuffed pineapples at the port which originated in Guyana.
There were two seizures between August and October, totalling 28 kilograms. The estimated street value was CDN$3.5 million, CBC said.
Pepper sauce cocaine
In 2008, Canadian authorities in New Brunswick and the US DEA in the Caribbean island of St Croix intercepted 376 kilograms of cocaine which was hidden in dividers separating bottles of pepper sauce from Guyana.
One shipment was busted on December 8, 2008 in New Brunswick, Canada and the other was nabbed on December 24, 2008 in St Croix, the US Virgin Islands after Canadian authorities tipped off the US DEA.
Local authorities had determined that the cocaine was packed among the pepper sauce bottles in Guyana.
Many people were questioned locally by the Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit but no charges were ever brought in connection with this major bust.
Following the seizure of the first pepper cocaine shipment Mahendrapaul Doodnauth, who unloaded the boxes at a rented storage facility on Rexdale Boulevard in Toronto was arrested by Canadian authorities.
He was later charged with importing cocaine, conspiracy to import cocaine and possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking. It is unclear what became of this case.
CANU then issued a bulletin for Indarpaul Doodnauth and he made himself available to the agency for questioning. Doodnauth, an East Coast-based businessman is the brother of Mahendrapaul Doodnauth. Indarpaul was later released.
