The Canada Border Services Agency said it has seized more than $400,000 worth of cocaine hidden in shoes being transported into Canada at the Pearson International Airport.
The agency said the traveller caught with the 3.5 kilograms of drugs was arriving from Guyana, but told The Epoch Times in an email it could not disclose the individual’s citizenship due to the Privacy Act. The street value of the drugs has been estimated at $437,000.
The cocaine was found using contraband detection technology, according to the email from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). It said that some of the technology used by the agency include ion mobility spectrometry, x-rays, and Narcotic Identification Kits.
The traveller and the drugs were handed over to Ontario RCMP, CBSA said.
Earlier this year, CBSA seized more than $11 million worth of cocaine that was being shipped into Canada.
The drugs were discovered in two separate shipments from the United States to Canada, CBSA said at the time.
In the first seizure, border officers found four duffle bags with about 86 kilograms of suspected cocaine following the search of a commercial truck. The drugs had an estimated value of $2.3 million.
CBSA officers found 333 kilograms of suspected cocaine with an estimated value of $9 million in a subsequent search of a tractor-trailer arriving from the United States.
Both seizures were made at Ontario’s Blue Water Bridge port of entry in Ontario.
Two men were charged as part of a joint operation between the CBSA and RCMP, which was called Operation Blizzard.
Another major seizure of cocaine was made by CBSA in March when the agency discovered 142 kilograms of cocaine, worth $3.5 million, in rail containers in Montreal. The drugs were stashed underneath the carpet of new vehicles from Mexico that were being transported in the rail containers.
CBSA officers were called out to the CN Taschereau Yard to inspect one of the rail containers, which prompted a search of other containers, where 119 bricks of cocaine were found hidden in the vehicles.
In another joint investigation involving the CBSA and RCMP, $2 million in cocaine was seized at Alberta’s Coutts port of entry.
The 189 kilograms of cocaine were found hidden inside a commercial truck in November 2024.
Cannabis Seizure
On June 6, CBSA said more than 577 kilograms of suspected cannabis was discovered hidden inside a container being sent to the Netherlands through Montreal’s Marine and Rail Service.Border services agents found the drugs in more than 1,000 vacuum-sealed packages that had been hidden in custom-built crates. The bags were surrounded by bundles of engineered wood.
The value of the drugs has been estimated at more than $4.2 million.
In another seizure, CBSA officers found 1,400 kilograms of cannabis at the Port of Montreal in late December 2024.
The drugs were estimated to be worth more than $12.8 million and were destined for Nigeria, CBSA said.
