An enormous win for the Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS), which introduced one of many largest drug seizures within the companies’ historical past Tuesday morning.
What began as a break-and-enter investigation within the Fergus Avenue and Weber Road East space of Kitchener final yr, ended as an enormous, 13-month-long drug trafficking investigation, with hyperlinks to organized crime.
Police say the investigation dates again to March 2023, when properties close to Fergus Avenue and Weber Road East, and Victoria Road South and Park Road, had been searched.
Money, weapons and medicines together with suspected cocaine, MDMA, and crystal methamphetamine had been discovered.
On April 26 of this yr, two extra properties in Kitchener had been searched by police — one at Sims Property Drive and Fairway Street North, the opposite at Homer Watson Boulevard and Previous Carriage Drive. Much more medicine and money had been seized.
Tuesday morning, police revealed the whole quantity of medication seized by police totalled round $9 million, with $800,000 in money collected, marking a historic drug seizure.
Two folks had been additionally arrested.
WRPS Inspector of Prison Intelligence Greg Hibbard says the harmful mixture of medication, firearms and arranged crime on this investigation, is following a harmful development within the province.
“In 2023, 695 firearms and prohibited weapons and over $2.72 million worth of drugs were seized. The Waterloo Regional Police Service continues to work in close coordination with other police services across Ontario to focus and collaborate on strategies related to drug trafficking, weapons, and organized crime, to help protect our community.”
Over the course of the near-year-long investigation, police introduced in:
Greater than 86 kilograms of suspected cocaine
Over 3 kilograms of suspected crystal methamphetamine
Roughly 700 grams of MDMA
Roughly $815,000 in Canadian foreign money
Seven handguns
Hibbard notes they’re all the time asking to public to come back ahead with tip about any suspicious or legal exercise.
“Over the course of the investigation, it’s hard to say and to find how long it would have taken to accumulate that (amount of drugs). This is an ongoing organized criminal network that the distribution of this size and level when you’re dealing with kilo level amounts, is significant and would continue throughout the community without us interrupting in this fashion.”
A 31-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman, each from Kitchener with no legal data have been arrested and are dealing with quite a few charges from the investigation.
“We had a 13-month drug trafficking investigation that resulted out of a residential break and enter report. Once they got there, they identified several kilograms of cocaine, which resulted in our drug and firearm unit getting involved in an organized crime complex drug investigation for drug trafficking that progressed further resulting in additional search warrants being executed by our criminal intelligence unit and the seizures we have before you,” stated Hibbard.
Hibbard talked about if WRPS had not intervened the criminals would nonetheless be working and promoting medicine across the area.
Extra arrests from the investigation are anticipated within the coming weeks.
