By Jorge Barrera
APTN National News
The password for the U.S. contact was “football.”
The destination was “Q,” code for the New York City borough of Queens.
The shipment was about 57 kilograms of marijuana stored in heat-sealed bags weighing about 500 grams each.
Some of the bags were marked with the word “Nebula,” others with the letters “OG” and “PK,” indicating the strain of the hydroponic weed.
The marijuana was placed into two green garbage bags and two black duffle bags and loaded into the box of a green Ford F150 on the U.S. side of the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve, which sits about 120 kilometres west of Montreal. The box was covered.
RCMP investigators were conducting surveillance at the house with the truck and knew the shipment was leaving. They tipped off the Drug Enforcement Administration in Plattsburg and provided the agency with the New York State license plate number and make of the pick-up truck
The DEA along with New York State police watched and waited. The truck was soon spotted and a state police trooper, riding with a police dog named Cully, clocked the pick-up truck going 63 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone.
When the officer approached the passenger side door, he immediately smelled marijuana.
The 22-year-old courier from Akwesasne said he had only a bit of marijuana for personal use. There was a joint in the ash tray, and two more joints in a pack of Camels cigarettes.
Cully, however, found the marijuana in the back of the truck.
While the courier was in custody, he received a call on his cell phone from his handler, “Tara,” in Akwesasne. The DEA agent answered the phone and told her she could come and pick up “her boy.”
The Sept. 25, 2007, interception of the New York City-bound marijuana shipment was one of the key pieces of police work executed during the a two year-long Operation Cancun investigation that included surveillance and phone-tapping by the Aboriginal Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, which was created to battle First Nations-based organized crime in Quebec.
The operation culminated on March 26, 2008, when about 300 police officers from the RCMP, SQ, and Mohawk police forces took part in a series of coordinated raids, arresting 29 people, seizing $2.5 million in cash, 110 kilograms of marijuana and a number of weapons, including three grenade launchers.
The Mohawk reserves of Akwesasne, Kahnawake and Kanesetake were all hit with raids along with locations in and around Montreal.
The RCMP, Surete du Quebec, Akwesasne and Kahanwake Mohawk police forces, along with the St. Regis Mohawk police on the U.S. side of Awkesasne were all involved in the operation.
The RCMP’s Integrated Proceeds of Crime Unit was also involved and targeted a group they believed were involved in laundering the drug network’s money. Among those was Michael Chamas, a Lebanese-born businessman who obtained his Canadian citizenship in 1995.
Investigators were also in constant contact with U.S. authorities to track the movements of some of the players in a cross-border marijuana smuggling network based out of Kahnawake Mohawk reserve near Montreal and Akwesasne.
Police investigators had watched as the marijuana was moved from Quebec grow-ops in Châteauguay and Mascouche to Kahnawake. There, it was stored in a container or inside a home until it is ready to be moved to Cornwall Island in Akwesasne Mohawk territory.
Cornwall Island sits in the St. Lawrence River and is a short boat ride from either country’s shore.
Akwesasne’s territory straddles the international border.
After the marijuana was taken to Cornwall Island, it was then put on a boat for a short ride into the U.S. side of Akwesasne, usually after midnight.
The marijuana was then picked up by a different set of couriers who were given phone numbers, names and codes for their contacts deeper in the U.S.
The phone numbers uncovered by police in Operation Cancun were traced to Queens and the Bronx in New York City.
