Canada Discloses Seizure of Large Shipments of Heroin

Canadian police said Tuesday that they have made one of the largest heroin seizures in the nation’s history, confiscating 343 pounds of the illicit drug, some of it packed into fake duck eggs.

Ten ethnic Chinese in Toronto and Vancouver were arrested on drug smuggling and possession charges after police and border patrol agents intercepted two separate shipments, according to police officials.

Police had been investigating Asian drug smugglers since last year. Police believe that the shipments, which arrived separately in Toronto and Vancouver, were linked because of the amount of heroin involved and the proximity of their arrival.

The first shipment was seized Thursday in Toronto and contained 125 pounds of heroin, along with 37 pounds of ecstasy pills, hidden inside fake duck eggs, said Supt. Ben Soave of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

In Vancouver, 218 pounds of heroin were found Saturday in a concealed bottom of a shipping container, Soave said.

The heroin came from Southeast Asia’s “Golden Triangle” and was prepared in China, then shipped from Hong Kong, police said.

Southeast Asia is one of the world’s major sources of opium, from which heroin is made, and the Golden Triangle is the nickname for the opium fields of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos.

Soave said elite Asian organized crime groups sent the drugs, but he refused to provide any further details.

He described it as one of the largest heroin busts ever in Canada, but he did not specify other major seizures. Before the operation, 24 pounds of heroin had been seized in Canada so far this year, police said. Fifty-one pounds were confiscated during 1999.

Two women and one man arrested in Toronto owned a food importing company but were also believed to be high-level drug distributors, said police Sgt. Earl Horlick.

The drugs sent to Toronto were packed in small plastic bags, then put into 1,700 plastic eggs, according to Soave. The fake duck eggs then were mixed up with real duck eggs and packed into boxes, he said.

Customs officials used drug-sniffing dogs to separate the real and fake eggs, and will destroy the real ones, Soave said. Duck eggs are a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, costing as much as 10 times the price of chicken eggs in Canada.