Police seize 45 kg of 'B.C. bud'
Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Apr 13/01) - Lessons learned during Operation Guiness are being credited for a massive drug bust on the highway to Yellowknife.
"This is how we want to see drug enforcement go in the Northwest Territories," said Staff Sgt. Dave Grundy as he displayed the pile of marijuana stacked neatly on a table at RCMP headquarters.
At approximately 4 p.m. Wednesday, a highway patrol officer stopped a van 40 km north of Fort Providence on Highway 3.
Inside the van, they found 45 kg of marijuana packaged in about 100 vacuum sealed bags inside garbage bags and a hockey duffel bag. Two men apprehended in the van carrying the drugs offered no resistance.
"They stopped voluntarily for the officer, then our drug guys stepped in," said Grundy.
Also seized was approximately $11,500 in U.S. and Canadian bills.
The shipment was destined for Yellowknife, according to Grundy, crediting information gathered in the massive Operation Guiness crackdown.
"We had so much intelligence about the movement of so many quantities of drugs coming into the Territory," he said. "What we're seeing now is the fruits of that intelligence."
Grundy said that the marijuana has a wholesale value of about $500,000.
Two men, aged 46 and 28, have been charged with trafficking in marijuana and possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.
Both men are from Sooke, B.C. The younger man is a former resident of Yellowknife.
