The Canadian Bazaar
TORONTO: An Indo-Canadian drug racket with links to the US and India has been busted with the arrest of over 30 people.
Ten kg of cocaine, eight kg of ketamine, three kg of heroin, 2.5 kg of opium, 48 firearms and $730,000 in Canadian currency have been seized under Operation Cheetah.
The arrests and drug seizure come after the year-long Operation Cheetah culminating in raids last week by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and regional police forces in Ontario, British Columbia and California, resulting in the arrest of 33 people.
Twenty-five of those arrested are Punjabi men from the Indian-dominated city of Brampton on the outskirts of Toronto.
These Brampton men are Parshotem Malhi, 54, Rupinder Dhillion, 37, Sanveer Singh, 25, Haripal Nagra, 45, Pritpal Singh, 56, Harkiran Singh, 33, Lakhpreet Brar, 29, Balwinder Dhaliwal, 60, Sukhmanpreet Singh, 23, Khushal Bhinder, 36, Prabhjeet Mundian, 34, Vansh Arora, 24, Simranjeet Narang, 28, Gaganpreet Gill, 28, Sukjit Dhaliwal, 47, Harjot Singh, 31, and Sukhjit Dhugga, 35.
Prabhsimaran Kaur, 25, and Rupinder Sharma, 25, both of Vaughan, have also been charged in the drug racket.
Gurbinder Sooch, 41, of no fixed address, has also been arrested.
These men smuggled cocaine, ketamine, heroin and opium into Canada and distributed them through their underground network.
They face various criminal offences, including conspiracies to import banned substances, drug smuggling, and possession of property obtained by crime.
Cocaine and other drugs smuggled into Canada come from California and are brought in by truckers. A few months, a Punjabi trucker Amanpreet Sandhu of Calgary was arrested while smuggling drugs worth over $28 million – a record in Canada.
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