More than 6,000 potentially lethal doses of fentanyl have been taken off the streets by border officials and Victoria police in one of the largest fentanyl seizures in the province.
Victoria police and the Canada Border Services Agency seized $1.2 million worth of drugs, including a large supply of fentanyl, from Vancouver International Airport and a Saanich apartment.
A Montreal man is facing drug trafficking charges and more arrests could come.
Border officials alerted Victoria police in mid-October that a large shipment of fentanyl was heading to an address in Victoria from China.
Border agents intercepted the package, which contained 1.45 kilograms of fentanyl valued at an estimated $400,000.
The Victoria police strike force unit went to the address listed on the package, a home in Cook Street Village. Further investigation led them to a family-friendly apartment building in east Saanich, which police found out was essentially a packaging and distribution stash house.
Officers raided the apartment unit and found a large quantity of drugs, with a total street value of $850,000.
The seizure included 6,052 individual 100-milligram doses of a heroin/fentanyl mixture. Also seized was 6.2 kilograms, or 6,181 individual packages, of cocaine with a street value of $247,000 and 1.2 kilograms of methamphetamine. More than $8,000 in cash was also seized.
Duc Khoung Pham, 27, was arrested on Nov. 15 and is charged with importing fentanyl and possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking. He is in custody with conditions which prohibit him from contacting three people.
Pham is expected to appear in court on Dec. 6.
Police said they expect more charges will be laid against Pham. They are working to identify his associates, who could also face charges.
“Every dose of fentanyl on the street has the potential to cause a lethal overdose,” said Victoria police drug expert Staff Sgt. Conor King, who believes the drugs were intended for the Greater Victoria market. “So taking 6,052 doses of fentanyl off the street hopefully will actually save lives.”
Nine people on Vancouver Island have died in the last 11 days of illicit drug overdoses.
King said the trafficking group wasn’t on the police department’s radar. He could not reveal what led investigators from the house in Cook Street Village to the distribution stash house in east Saanich.
The 20-year officer said he was startled to see the amount of packaged drugs which were on the verge of being distributed. “Not only is this a shocking amount of fentanyl packaged for street sales but this operation shows that these guys diversify the product they are selling. You don’t always come across a stash for distribution,” said King.
The 6,052 heroin/fentanyl doses were in individual lotto flaps, small envelopes made from folded squares of lottery paper.
King said he believes law enforcement will soon have a handle on pills laced with fentanyl, but “the lotto flaps will be with us.”
He said no analysis had been done of the purity of each heroin/fentanyl dose.
“But I can say almost to a certainty, that no two amounts of fentanyl will be the same in all 6,000 doses. And that’s what makes it incredibly dangerous. Not only is it dangerous in any amount, but the user who becomes accustomed to or feels familiar with a certain visual amount of heroin/fentanyl wil not realize that perhaps they are taking a higher dose than they are accustomed to because of the lack of uniformity in the dosages,” said King.
The man arrested has no ties to Victoria, which leads investigators to believe he was here solely for the purpose of being involved in the drug trade, King said.
Victoria police are carrying Naloxone to reverse the effects of an overdose. The police department also supports three supervised consumption sites proposed for the city.
At a press conference, Acting Police Chief Del Manak said the department’s focus is on targeting drug traffickers who prey on society’s most vulnerable.
B.C. Solicitor General Mike Morris praised the co-operation between law enforcement agencies that led to the seizure. “A seizure like this demonstrates the gravity of the situation we’re facing not only in Victoria and British Columbia but right across Canada,” Morris said. “Through co-operation and intelligence-sharing, a significant quantity of illicit drugs was intercepted before it could reach the streets of our communities.”
The border agency has had a difficult time detecting small packages of fentanyl because it is unable to open packages weighing less than 30 grams without the consent of the recipient. This package was more than 30 grams, said Cindy Gill, acting superintendent of the agency’s Vancouver International Mail Centre.
“All goods are subject to examination, a risk assessment is done on parcels using non-intrusive inspection tools,” she said. ”Once we determine there is an unknown powder ... the RCMP and our local law enforcement partners are contacted.”
The RCMP announced last week that a deal has been reached with China’s public security ministry to crack down on those smuggling fentanyl and other opioids from China to Canada.
“Stopping guns and gangs is paramount but stopping the flow of illicit drugs into Canada from source countries like China is paramount of course as well,” Morris said.
In October, a routine traffic stop in Nanaimo led to the seizure of one kilogram of fentanyl, which was at the time described as one of the biggest seizures in B.C.
kderosa@timescolonist.com
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