$9M in cocaine found in suitcases at Winnipeg’s airport

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This article was published 27/02/2024 (647 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Canada Border Services Agency found cocaine it said is worth more than $9 million in two suitcases left unclaimed at Winnipeg’s airport.

The suitcases were from an international flight. The CBSA found 60 wrapped packages containing a total of 74.8 kilograms of suspected cocaine on Feb. 9.

The CBSA said it is the biggest-ever narcotics seizure at an airport in the Prairie region. The drugs were handed over to Manitoba RCMP.

“Every day through the vigilance, expertise and commitment of CBSA officers, we are combatting the smuggling of illegal narcotics into Canada and disrupting international crime networks,” Greg Valentine, the director of CBSA’s intelligence and enforcement operations division for the region, said in a news release. ”Thanks to the quick thinking of officers at the Winnipeg International Airport, more than 75 kg of cocaine is not going to make it to Canadian streets, where it could have injured or destroyed countless lives.”

The CBSA seized more than 1,320 kg of cocaine or crack cocaine at all ports of entry in the first three quarters of the 2023-34 fiscal year.

The bust comes less than a month after the CBSA’s biggest-ever drug bust in the Prairies. Canada Border Services Agency officers found 406 kg of methamphetamine while searching a semi-truck at the Boissevain port of entry on Jan. 14. The officers found 200 packages of meth in several large suitcases. RCMP said the meth could be sold on the street for $50.7 million.