Two Vancouver Island men have been arrested and a large amount of cocaine has been seized after a boat rented from a Nootka Sound fishing lodge was used in a possible drug-smuggling operation.
The file is being handled by the RCMP’s federal serious organized crime section but few details are being released about the sequence of events around the drug operation and subsequent arrests.
The Victoria Rescue Co-ordination Centre was contacted Thursday about a rented boat that failed to return to the fishing lodge from which it had been rented.
Rescue crews responded but could not locate the boat at sea. Later, a passerby who enquired about the search told emergency crews he had driven his vehicle past a boat — fitting the same description — on a trailer on a nearby logging road in Nootka Sound.
Gold River RCMP responded but RCMP federal drug investigators quickly became involved.
Two men were arrested, said Sgt. Laurie White, with the RCMP’s federal policing section, although she could not say where or when they were arrested.
White said she could not release the quantity of cocaine seized.
The men have not yet been charged so their names are not being released.
White said a multi-agency investigation is ongoing but would not say if U.S. officials are involved.
