RCMP charge 27 suspects, remove $1.2 million in drugs from First Nation terrorized by organized crime

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This article was published 12/12/2025 (267 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba RCMP have charged 27 suspects and seized $1.2 million in drugs while targeting an organized crime group that used violence and arson to stoke fear and control in a northern First Nation.

Investigators said the six-month sting, called Project Derry, dismantled a trafficking network that funnelled drugs, including cocaine, oxycodone, fentanyl and carfentanil, into Bunibonibee Cree Nation via Winnipeg and Thompson.

“Drug traffickers who bring in and distribute these illicit drugs have no regard for the safety and well-being of community members,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner Scott McMurchy told reporters. “They are only about making a profit, no matter the consequence.”

Violent incidents and fires, including an arson that destroyed Bunibonibee’s band office in April, prompted the investigation in the fly-in community, about 950 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. More arrests and charges are expected.

The group’s alleged leader, Luke Grieves, 33, was in custody at Milner Ridge Correctional Centre, northeast of Winnipeg, when he was arrested. He is charged with trafficking and organized crime-related offences.

His recent convictions include assaults, gun possession, uttering threats and failing to comply with conditions, court records show.

Grieves is from Bunibonibee, where he had a degree of control in the community, said RCMP Supt. Jeff Asmundson of Manitoba’s integrated law enforcement team, which led the investigation.

Team member Sgt. Brock Carson said residents, First Nation safety officers and Bunibonibee’s council were targeted with violence or crimes of intimidation.

“There was a high degree of fear in the community,” he said.

Bunibonibee Chief Richard Hart, who could not be reached for comment Friday, told the Free Press in April he believed the arson that destroyed the band office was in retaliation to the “war on drugs” he and others were waging.

He said his home and the homes of some councillors were vandalized.

Bunibonibee has had “quite a few” drug overdose deaths in recent years, Hart said in April.

RCMP said 18 of Project Derry’s 27 suspects live in Bunibonibee. The rest were from Winnipeg and Thompson. Four suspects are still being sought.

A 15-year-old boy is among those charged.

“They’re taking advantage of people that don’t necessarily have the means and or the knowledge due to their age, and we want to stop that and try to divert those people into a better path,” Asmundson said.

Officers seized nine guns, about two kilograms of cocaine, hundreds of oxycodone and fentanyl pills, a small amount of carfentanil and hundreds of liquor bottles. Bunibonibee, formerly Oxford House Cree Nation, previously banned alcohol.

Some drug buyers were given pills that were passed off as oxycodone but contained fentanyl, a far more potent opioid.

“There is no quality control in drug trafficking, and you don’t know what you’re going to get,” Asmundson said. “It could be sold as ecstasy. It could be sold as oxycodone, but it could have fentanyl or carfentanil in it, and those are fatal.”

Traffickers use courier services, traditional mail and other means to smuggle drugs into remote communities, he said. Float planes were used to smuggle alcohol into Bunibonibee.

In November, RCMP found nearly half a kilogram of cocaine that was hidden inside a TV that was being shipped to Bunibonibee via Thompson’s airport.

First Nation safety officers found about $140,000 worth of crack cocaine, cocaine and pills thought to be oxycodone when they stopped a passenger who arrived on a flight from Thompson in September.

Asmundson said the arrests led to a drop in crime and calls for service in Bunibonibee.

“People do feel safer. We’re happy to say this has given the community some reprieve,” he said.

RCMP vowed to work with Bunibonibee’s leaders and First Nation safety officers to prevent other drug dealers from filling the void.

Bunibonibee is one of the northern communities where Joseph Fourre has presented his anti-drug awareness campaign. Fourre founded the Singing Red Bear Foundation in memory of his late son, Harlan, 31, who died after taking a drug that he didn’t know was laced with fentanyl.

“These communities have been under siege by drug traffickers,” he said. “Drugs kind of feed on despair. Some communities are in that state of despair.”

Fourre said the RCMP crackdown will significantly disrupt a drug supply chain, with supports needed in its wake.

“I hope the resources can be put in place to help the people that were doing the drugs get to a place of recovery,” he said. “The community has to have the resources to help deal with that demand (for drugs), so that demand is lessened and the next set of drug dealers or organized crime don’t move in there or try to move in there to fill that void.”

— With files from Nicole Buffie

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca