50 kilograms of cocaine found in suitcases at Pearson
Posted January 2, 2014 4:57 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Border officials have seized nearly 50 kilograms of cocaine hidden in unclaimed suitcases at Pearson International Airport.
The first discovery was made on Saturday when Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officials noticed an unclaimed suitcase from Curacao. It contained 17 bricks which tests later confirmed to be 23 kilograms of cocaine. The RCMP said no arrests were made in that seizure but that the investigation was ongoing.
The second discovery was made on Tuesday when officers clearing a flight from the Dominican Republic noticed another unclaimed suitcase. That one contained 25 kilograms of cocaine. A spokesman for Peel police couldn’t immediately say whether an arrest was made in that case.
RCMP Sgt. Peter Koersvelt said that a gram of cocaine has a street value of about $100, which means the illicit drugs from those two suitcases could be worth about $4.8 million.
“I want to warn would-be smugglers that CBSA officers will not tolerate the use of our international airports for illegal cross-border activities,” Goran Vragovic, a CBSA regional director general, said in a release.
Last June, border officials found 16 bricks of cocaine worth about $2 million taped to ceiling tiles inside a men’s washroom at Pearson.
