Garbage bin drops, drone surveillance and cellphone taps: inside Winnipeg’s drug battle

The same month police began investigating what would become the largest drug bust in Manitoba history, officers already had their eyes on at least two of the suspects.

The Winnipeg Police Service announced the arrests Wednesday of 33 people accused of drug trafficking and other crimes.

“This organization exerted significant influence over the distribution of illicit drugs across Manitoba and other provinces,” WPS organized crime Insp. Josh Ewatski said as he announced the charges.

Court records from a civil forfeiture proceeding show several of the accused named by WPS were known to police, including Connor Abraham, 21, and Mohammed Makhlouf, 23.

Both men were targets of a police investigation that occurred the same month the operation, named Project Puma, began in May 2024, court documents said.

The court papers, submitted to the Court of King’s Bench in September 2024, detailed how officers had been watching Abraham and Makhlouf, covertly conducting physical and electronic surveillance between February and May of that year.

Throughout the investigation, police say evidence of a network moving kilograms worth of cocaine and other drugs throughout Winnipeg was uncovered.

Investigators initially focused on Makhlouf, but Abraham was soon identified as a suspected “runner” in the network, the documents say.

Police believed he was storing drugs and cash at his father’s home in Winnipeg, and began the process of securing search warrants.

Abraham and Makhlouf were arrested in separate traffic stops on May 31, 2024. Around the same time, other officers were preparing to search the house on the 400 block of Burrin Avenue.

Aerial surveillance

In an affidavit, a police drone operator said he was providing aerial surveillance of the property at the time of the raid. He captured footage of Abraham’s sister and his cousin dropping suspicious packages into garbage bins behind the home.

When police searched those bins, they recovered nearly $340,000 in cash, seven kilograms of cocaine, a money counter, drug packaging materials, gloves and a scale, the documents say.

Investigators analyzed the money and learned the serial numbers on six of the bills matched cash used by undercover agents to complete previous drug purchases.

Seven people have already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from Project Puma, police said Wednesday.

One of those is 36-year-old Clinton Netemegesic, who was sentenced in March to 16 years in prison for his role in the drug network.

Netemegesic was arrested Feb. 18, 2025, just two months after he had finished the parole portion of a 10-year manslaughter sentence.

Court heard RCMP in Alberta had begun monitoring the cellphone of co-accused Chelsea Mageau in July 2024 after learning of a phone line being used to sell drugs in and around Edmonton. Between August 2024 and February 2025, Mageau sold undercover officers a total of three kilograms of methamphetamine.

On Feb. 18, Alberta RCMP tracked Mageau’s cellphone to a Best Western hotel in Headingley, where Winnipeg police started monitoring her movements.

That afternoon, Netemegesic and a driver pulled into the hotel parking lot. Police video captured Mageau leaving the hotel and providing Netemegesic with a blue grocery bag and a heavy hockey bag, which Netemegesic placed in the truck.

Police followed Netemegesic and his driver to Pipeline Road at the Perimeter, pulled the vehicle over and arrested the two men.

Inside the bags, police found 60 kilograms of methamphetamine and five kilograms of fentanyl.

“The quantities we are talking about here are massive.”

“The quantities we are talking about here are massive,” Crown attorney Stephen Sisson told King’s Bench Justice Chris Monnin in March. “The ultimate net value of the drugs when broken down and sold at the street level is in the millions of dollars.”

Netemegesic and Mageau, who was arrested separately, both refused to provide a statement to police.

Charges against Netemegesic’s driver, who claimed he had been hired that day and was unaware of the contents of the bags, were stayed at Netemegesic’s sentencing.

An analysis of the fentanyl found it also contained heroin, ketamine and benzodiazepines, the last of which is resistant to opioid-antidote naloxone in the case of an overdose, Sisson said.

Netemegesic’s role in the drug network was described as “closer to a courier.”

“This wasn’t his business, per se, he was brought in to do a small part of it,” said defence lawyer Mike Cook.

Netemegesic is a sheet metal worker by trade, Cook said.

“His career as a drug dealer is over,” he said. “He’s looking forward to doing some other things with his life.”

Criminal records

A review of media reports and court records shows many of the others arrested have criminal records or have been previously arrested.

George MacFarlane, 50, was arrested in May 2025 and charged with multiple drug offences after police seized an estimated $2 million worth of cocaine and methamphetamine from three stash houses in the city.

Justice officials later launched civil forfeiture proceedings against MacFarlane, seeking nearly $200,000 in cash seized from two of the homes.

In October 2018, Daniel Finkbeiner, 38, was among 10 people arrested following a 10-month long interprovincial investigation that netted an estimated $2.7 million worth of illegal drugs, weapons and high-end vehicles.

Forty-eight-year-old Cory Kozmenski, who has a criminal record dating back more than two decades, was arrested in December 2024 and charged with multiple drug offences following a police chase after which he was found in possession of ecstasy pills and more than $10,000 in cash.

Tongun Tongun, 24, was charged in 2023 with allegedly sextorting men and boys in several provinces he had met online while posing as a young woman.

Prosecutors stayed charges against Tongun last year after several of the victims declined to testify at trial.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca