$7.75 million worth of dope was going to be smuggled out of Pearson by ramp workers with links to the gangs

The $7.75 million worth of dope was going to be smuggled out of Pearson by ramp workers with links to the gangs, police say.Crime gangs in the GTA were to be the final stop for 300 kilos of pot and hash seized on two flights from Jamaica at Pearson airport, the RCMP says. Eight drug-filled duffel bags were found March 13 by crew off-loading a plane, said Patrizia Giolti, of the Canada Border Services Agency. The seizure wasn't made public until yesterday as officers were hoping to run down the smugglers. The bags contained 41 bricks of marijuana weighing over 95 kilos, and 65 bricks of hashish and hash oil weighing over 98 kilos, Giolti said.
Later that day there was a second bust after Mingo, a drug detector dog, led officers to four pieces of baggage that contained 69 kilos of pot, 46 kilos of hashish and a kilo brick of cocaine. "There were no addresses or labels on the bags," Giolti said yesterday. "The drugs were found wrapped in cellophane."
Airport officers are seizing up to six unclaimed bags daily filled with drugs, RCMP Sgt. Marc LaPorte said.

Read More

Site Specific Privacy Policy run in accordance with http://www.google.com/privacy.html
We can be reached via e-mail at
copsandbloggers@googlemail.com
For each visitor to our Web page, our Web server automatically recognizes information of your browser, IP address, City/State/Country.
We collect only the domain name, but not the e-mail address of visitors to our Web page, the e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail.
The information we collect is used for internal review and is then discarded, used to improve the content of our Web page, used to customize the content and/or layout of our page for each individual visitor.
With respect to cookies: We use cookies to store visitors preferences, record user-specific information on what pages users access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors' browser type or other information that the visitor sends.
With respect to Ad Servers: To try and bring you offers that are of interest to you, we have relationships with other companies like Google (www.google.com/adsense) that we allow to place ads on our Web pages. As a result of your visit to our site, ad server companies may collect information such as your domain type, your IP address and clickstream information. For further information, consult the privacy policy of:
http://www.google.com/privacy.html
copsandbloggers@googlemail.com
If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us at the above email address.

Read More

Police have seized 1.5 kilograms of heroin from a Tajik national in the town of Lyubertsy southeast of Moscow

Police have seized 1.5 kilograms of heroin from a Tajik national in the town of Lyubertsy southeast of Moscow, a Moscow Region police spokesman said on Sunday. The narcotics were discovered in a hiding place in an apartment rented by an unemployed Tajik national, the spokesman said. Most of the heroin and hashish coming into Russia originates in Afghanistan and is then trafficked into the country through the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Most of the drugs are then sold in Russia's largest cities, or shipped onto Europe. The Federal Drugs Control Service said earlier that Russian drug control officers have seized some 500 kg (1,100 lbs) of heroin since the beginning of the year, up 70% year-on-year.

Read More

Arrested Two B.C. men in a truck carrying $3.5-million in cocaine

Two B.C. men are facing charges after being pulled over in a truck carrying $3.5-million in cocaine, U.S. media are reporting.The men were pulled over in California between the towns of Barstow and Victorville, about 150 kilometres northeast of Los Angeles. Police noticed their truck bed appeared shallower than it should be.Police seized the vehicle, and used a fork lift to remove the truck bed. They discovered an elaborately hidden stash of powdered cocaine totalling 68 kilograms with a street value local police think to be about $3.5-million.The B.C. men are in their 20s, according to the report.

Read More

53-year-old man has been arrested at Prestwick Airport on suspicion of trying to smuggle a quantity of cocaine into the country.

53-year-old man has been arrested at Prestwick Airport on suspicion of trying to smuggle a quantity of cocaine into the country. The man was stopped by officers from the UK Border Agency on Tuesday night after he got off a flight from Spain. Police were called after he was found to be in possession of drugs, believed to be cocaine, with an estimated street value of £60,000. The man was expected to appear at Ayr Sheriff Court on Wednesday.

Read More

Roman Vidal, 57, allegedly smuggled millions of dollars in black market cigarettes through the Port of Miami on behalf of European gangs

Roman Vidal, 57, allegedly smuggled millions of dollars in black market cigarettes through the Port of Miami on behalf of European gangs --- including the Real IRA, which has claimed responsibility for an attack on a four soldiers waiting for a pizza delivery.The brutal killings -- which included execution shots to wounded victims lying on the ground -- threaten to derail the peace process in Northern Ireland, with one Protestant leader warning that it might signal a return to the "bad old days where people are being killed in open air gun attacks."Vidal fronted a freight company that imported millions of cigarettes from Panama, hid them under wood flooring and insulation in freighters at the Port of Miami and then sent them to gangs in Dublin, according to the complaint. He's been charged with four counts of federal wire and mail fraud.An informant tipped Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Miami to Vidal's scheme in Feb. 2006, and agents began watching Vidal's business and checking his recent shipments.They found that the previous December, Vidal shipped 7.3 million cigarettes from Panama to Miami, purchased wood flooring at a local hardware store, and then covered the shipment with floorboards. When the cargo arrived in Dublin, Vidal's Irish contacts paid only $2,900 in tariffs and pocketed the $2.1 million they avoided in taxes.Vidal pulled an identical scheme last February, ICE agents say, shipping about 6 million Panamanian cigarettes hidden under building insulation to the UK. As agents dug into Vidal's criminal enterprise, they learned that he worked for "a criminal organization that has associates operating in Spain, Ireland, and other European countries as well as in the Southern District of Florida."During the course of the investigation, evidence has indicated that some of these associates were connected to the group Real IRA," says Robert Manzanares, a senior special agent with ICE, in his criminal complaint.

Read More

Heroin worth an estimated €250,000 has been seized following the search of an apartment in Adamstown.

Heroin worth an estimated €250,000 has been seized following the search of an apartment in Adamstown.As the result of an intelligence led operation, gardaí searched an apartment in the Adamstown area of Lucan, Co Dublin last night.A car was also seized and taken to Kevin St for a technical examination. During this examination, which was carried out this morning, 1.25kg of heroin were discovered.This substance, depending on a forensic analysis, has a potential street value of €250,000.Certain paraphernalia associated with drug dealing were also seized from the apartment.
No arrests have been made and investigations are continuing.

Read More

Julian Burford, 40, and Turner D. Williams, 34, were arrested.

Julian Burford, 40, and Turner D. Williams, 34, were arrested. The men are being held in Cleveland City Jail for investigation of aggravated drug trafficking. No formal charges have been filed.investigation Tuesday netted more than 70 pounds of cocaine with a street value of more than $5 million.Officers investigating the drug trafficking operation learned that a truckload of cocaine originating in California was en-route to Cleveland."This is another example of our never-ending fight against narcotics trafficking in this area," said McGrath. "As long as criminals continue to bring drugs into Cleveland, we will continue to send them to the penitentiary."
"This poison was destined for the streets of Greater Cleveland," said Murphy. "This seizure and these arrests should serve as a warning to anyone else who might consider bringing drugs to our cities."

Read More

Ex-paramilitary leader Miguel Angel Mejia Munera was handcuffed and wearing a bullet-proof before he boarded a plane for the United States

Ex-paramilitary leader Miguel Angel Mejia Munera was handcuffed and wearing a bullet-proof before he boarded a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) plane in Bogota bound for the United States, which had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.Colombia extradited one of its most-wanted drug lords to the United States on Wednesday to face charges of running an armed cocaine-smuggling gang with his twin brother, police said."With all the necessary procedures completed, Miguel Angel Mejia Munera was carried on a DEA plane to the United States," Colombian police said in a statement.Mejia, 49, had been held in a high-security prison in Colombia since his arrest last May. He is expected to be charged with drug trafficking and money laundering after his arrival in Miami.The U.S. State Department says he and his brother, Victor, shipped at least 68 tonnes of cocaine to the United States and Europe over a two-year period before their network was broken up in 2003.Victor Mejia was killed in a shootout with police days before his brother, known as "The Twin," was found in a secret compartment of a truck headed to Bogota.The brothers were leaders of far-right militias embroiled in a four-decade-old armed conflict in the world's top cocaine producer.They helped negotiate a controversial peace deal with President Alvaro Uribe starting in 2003 but refused to surrender after the talks and instead set up a cocaine smuggling network staffed by demobilized militia members.Paramilitary groups formed in the 1980s to help wealthy Colombians fight left-wing rebels. They also massacred civilians, trafficked cocaine and seized farmland in the name of the counter-insurgency.Since Uribe took office in 2002, he has led a U.S.-funded military crackdown and extradited more than 700 Colombians. But the South American nation still produces at least 600 tonnes of cocaine a year, most of which is sold on the streets of the United States and Europe

Read More

Two Guyanese women en route to separate African destinations were arrested at airports in Brazil and Portugal

Two Guyanese women en route to separate African destinations were arrested at airports in Brazil and Portugal after cocaine concealed in liquid eyeliner containers were discovered in their checked luggage, police said yesterday.
A release from the Force stated that they have been informed that on February 11, Portuguese customs officials at Lisbon airport seized over 16 kilograms of cocaine concealed inside liquid eyeliner containers placed in the checked baggage of a 42-year-old Guyanese female. She was travelling from Portugal to Brazil to Guinea Bissau, West Africa.The release added that on the following day, authorities at the Guarulhos Cumbica International Airport, Sao Paolo, Brazil, arrested a 26-year-old Guyanese woman travelling to Nigeria. Her checked baggage was found to contain 4 kilograms of cocaine which were also concealed in liquid eyeliner containers

Read More

Revenue's Customs Service seized money, cocaine and a large haul of cigarettes over the weekend at Dublin Airport.

Officers from the Revenue's Customs Service seized money, cocaine and a large haul of cigarettes over the weekend at Dublin Airport.Two sums of cash, €28,450 and €34,900, were seized yesterday when officers searched the baggage of two Irish nationals, aged 44 and 32, who were about to board a flight to Malaga.Officers were granted two-month detention orders this morning in each case by Justice Brian Smyth in the Dublin District Court, to carry out further investigations.On Saturday, officers intercepted a 25-year-old Polish man who had arrived on a flight from Brussels. He was found to have ingested 84 pellets of cocaine weighing approximately 1Kg with a street value of €70,000. He was handed over to the Garda Drug squad in Santry.A total of 373,000 cigarettes and one vehicle were also seized over the weekend in a number of operations targeting cigarette smuggling gangs. Customs officers at Dublin Airport have seized €1 million worth of drugs, €129,000 in cash and six million cigarettes to date in 2009.

Read More

Authorities say trash bags containing marijuana, tobacco and cell phones were thrown over a wall at Talawanda Heights

Authorities say trash bags containing marijuana, tobacco and cell phones were thrown over a wall at a minimum-security housing facility near Oklahoma State Penitentiary.Capt. Don Hass of the McAlester Police Department says three Tulsa women were arrested in the smuggling attempt after a neighbor called authorities.
The incident occurred Friday at Talawanda Heights which is a 69-bed minimum security unit outside the east gate of the main OSP facility. It houses inmates used in OSP support positions such as maintenance and kitchen work.Deputy Warden Linda Morgan says an inmate at the main prison has an association with 1 of the women and an investigation is under way.

Read More