Province seeking cash, vehicles, luxury goods from accused ringleader in cocaine trafficking ring

Winnipeg Police Service investigators arrested the alleged leader of a drug-smuggling ring that was trafficking cocaine from the city into a remote, fly-in First Nation in northwestern Ontario late last year, court documents reveal.

Details of the police investigation — dubbed Project Safe Haven — are included in a recent civil forfeiture lawsuit, filed in Court of King’s Bench by provincial justice officials seeking to keep cash, luxury vehicles and designer goods seized from the alleged ringleader and his girlfriend.

WPS organized-crime investigators began the project last July, focusing on a group of individuals alleged to be selling illicit substances, including cocaine, in North Spirit Lake First Nation, under the direction of a group people in Winnipeg, who were then laundering the cash.

Quinn Alexander Davidson, a 34-year-old who’s currently serving a 3 1/2-year sentence in a British Columbia prison on a cocaine trafficking conviction, is alleged to be the Winnipeg ringleader.

“The defendant Davidson was directing the distribution of controlled substances within North Spirit Lake and managing the collection and distribution of proceeds derived from drug-trafficking activity,” reads the provincial government’s statement of claim.

The claim is seeking to retain about $7,300 in Canadian cash; three pairs of Cartier designer sunglasses, two Gucci cosmetic bags, a Gucci purse and a diamond pendant; a Lincoln SUV, a Mercedes Benz sedan and a pontoon boat.

The items and money were seized by police when they executed a warrant on Davidson’s home on Summerscales Place in northwest Winnipeg on Oct. 24.

Justice officials allege Davidson and his girlfriend, 25-year-old Sarah Ann Marie Ross, purchased the vehicles and luxury goods as a means of laundering drug money.

Both were charged with possession of the proceeds of crime over $5,000 in late October. The criminal charges have not been proven in court.

Investigators also cautioned Davidson that he was being looked at for a drug-trafficking charge.

The court filing claims Davidson directed a Winnipeg associate to collect, manage and distribute the drug-trafficking profits on his behalf.

That included arranging for couriers to move cash by air from the First Nation north of Red Lake, Ont., to Winnipeg, make payments on his credit card using drug money and send electronic money transfers to those involved in operation.

The associate, the court papers allege, obtained the money from drug-ring underlings via e-transfer or picked it up in person.

That associate was arrested in July last year, but Davidson found others to collect the money and distribute the money made by selling drugs in the First Nation, as well as other Indigenous communities in northern Manitoba and Ontario, the court filing claims.

The lawsuit alleges Davidson and Ross laundered the money made via drug trafficking by purchasing expensive assets, transferring cash to third parties, using associates to send and receive money on their behalf, and by sending and receiving e-transfers in patterns “consistent with placement and layering.”

Placement and layering refer to putting “dirty” cash into the legitimate financial system, then creating layers of transactions in an effort to hide its origins.

The couple and their associates received e-transfers in excess of $750,000 from people with connections to North Spirit Lake between Jan. 1, 2023 and Sept. 3 last year, financial records obtained by police showed.

Neither have legitimate jobs, officials allege.

Davidson provided no explanation for the e-transfers from North Spirit Lake when interviewed by police.

He said little during the arrest interview, but when told the project name for the investigation was “Safe Haven,” advised officers he didn’t like it.

On his cellphone, investigators found numerous discussions about drug sales, photos of Davidson holding packages that appear to contain money or drugs and internet searches about how to launder money, smuggle into prisons and about drug busts, the court filing claims.

The document says Davidson has been the subject of 10 suspicious transaction reports submitted by his banks to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada between 2022 and 2024. Ross was subject to two such reports.

Banks and other institutions are required to report transactions they reasonably suspect to be related to money laundering or terrorist financing to FINTRAC.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca