The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have charged 15 people after a two-year long international drug investigation that police say uncovered “ties to Colombian and Mexican drug cartels” and included links to Guyana.
CBC News reported on Tuesday that in total, 45 charges have been laid. All but one of the accused face charges of conspiracy to import cocaine from several countries including Antigua, Brazil, the United States, Colombia and Guyana, the report said. Nine people have been arrested and six are still at large, the RCMP said.
The investigation, dubbed Operation Harrington, began in the spring of 2013. The CBC report quoted police as saying that they uncovered eight conspiracies to import cocaine into Canada.
The operation led to the seizure of vehicles, firearms, cash, drug paraphernalia and more than 200 kilograms of cocaine.
According to RCMP, there were also four investigations into cocaine trafficking and one investigation into firearms trafficking.
The Global News website said that those facing charges are:
* Steven Tello, 35, from Toronto — four counts of conspiracy to import cocaine, two counts of trafficking cocaine.
* Mathew Thomas Fleming, 35, from Maple, ON — four counts of conspiracy to import cocaine, one count of trafficking cocaine and one count of trafficking in firearms.
* Gary Christopher Meister, 60, from Bedford, N.S. — two counts of conspiracy to import cocaine, two counts of conspiracy to traffic cocaine.
* Michael Costa, 30, from Vaughan, ON — one count of conspiracy to import cocaine, one count of trafficking cocaine.
* Philipos Kollaros, 35, from Montreal — two counts of conspiracy to import cocaine, two counts of conspiracy to traffic cocaine.
* Bayon David Figueoa Escobar, 36, from Montreal — one count of trafficking cocaine
* Stephen Alexander Fleming, 33, from Halifax — one count of conspiracy to import cocaine, one count of conspiracy to traffic cocaine
* Delbert William Meister, 69, from Halifax — two counts of conspiracy to import cocaine, two counts of conspiracy to traffic cocaine
* Darlene Margaret Richards, 54, from Greenwood, N.S. — two counts of conspiracy to import cocaine, two counts of conspiracy to traffic cocaine
In April 2015, Richards, Delbert and Gary Meister, along with Philipos Kollaros and Ryan James Wedding of Montreal, are accused of conspiring to import and traffic cocaine from “countries unknown into Canada.”
“Many of these players have played a substantial role in drug importations in Canada,” said Inspector Glenn Lambe with the federal and serious organized crime unit of the Nova Scotia RCMP, according to the CBC report. RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mike Cabana said it was an extensive and complex investigation.
“Our evidence demonstrates that these individuals were planning to import multi-kilogram loads of cocaine into Canada, via the East Coast from South America, destined for the Canadian market,” the CBC report quoted him as saying.
Cabana said there were clear ties to organized crime.
