Philippe Morin
Northern News Services
Monday, July 2, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Highways from the south are being used to bring drugs and firearms into the territory.

From June 5 to 8, RCMP officers from Alberta and British Columbia joined the NWT RCMP for a joint operation, called "Operation Gatekeeper."

The officers stopped cars heading into the territories, and checked to see if anything illegal was happening.

The blitz featured 30 RCMP officers and lasted four days.

Police say they issued more than 200 tickets, and also found a certain quantity of drugs and at least one handgun headed for the NWT.

Police said five trafficking charges were laid under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The total weight of seizures was 1.25 kilograms of cocaine, one gram of crack cocaine and 111 grams of psilocybin, which is the active ingredient in so-called "magic mushrooms."

Officers also seized 1 kilogram of marijuana and changed 11 people with liquor infractions. .

According to police, the estimated value of the total drugs would be $260,000 if they were sold at the gram level.

However, no information was available about whether the drugs were packaged in large or small quantities, indicating a probability of being sold this way.

In addition to drugs, police also confiscated several weapons.

Officers found seven unauthorized firearms - which could merely be hunters without a license - and charged one driver for carrying a loaded 9mm handgun.

In that particular case, the car also included cocaine.

Const. Darren Ruben of the Fort Smith RCMP detachment said the NWT borders are usually patrolled by officers.

However, with limited resources, he said most police work in his area is done by two cars, and officers cannot stop cars at the high volume of Operation Gateway.

"Our two-person highway patrol unit based out of Hay River makes frequent patrols on all highways," he said.

"They go to Enterprise, which is roughly the entry from Alberta, and we do have other detachments along the highway who do patrols, time permitting," he said. .

According to police, a similar border-check was held in October 2006.