Cops say $40M meth bust is Ontario's largest ever
TORONTO - Five people face numerous charges and pills with a street value of $40 million are now in the hands of police following what investigators are calling the largest methamphetamine bust in Ontario history.
In July, officers from the province’s Asian Organized Crime Task Force — a specialized, multi-force crime-fighting unit — executed search warrants at a handful of homes and businesses in the GTA, Campbellford and Warkworth.
The blitz resulted in the seizure of 120 kilos of pure methamphetamine, which investigators estimate would have produced around four million pills.
Police also took in more than 110,000 prepared methamphetamine pills, 14 kilos of powder, and two motorized presses used to form and spit out the highly-additive pills, which investigators said Thursday were destined for countries outside Canada.
The seizure also included chemicals from a storage locker in Markham.
The Chinese charged with trafficking, production and possession offences are Jimmy Sut Jhing Ng, 55, and Sui Yuan Zhao, 39, of Campbellford, Kok King Chao, 49, and Joey Sui Hung Mo, 45, of Aurora, and 28-year-old Chun Kit Wong of Markham.
According to a police source, the clandestine operation was something of a close-knit affair, involving two couples and an accomplice.
A key to the investigation’s birth came in April when police were led to a storage locker in Uxbridge allegedly containing suspicious chemicals, the source said. After this, investigators began keeping an eye on Ng, the operation’s alleged ringleader and someone previously known to police.
This ultimately resulted in the July arrest of Ng and his wife, Zhao, at their Campbellford home, an inconspicuous property police alleged was one of three pill-making facilities.
A second property in Warkworth — a lab used to produce the raw methamphetamine, police say — was also raided.
Chao and his wife, Mo, were arrested at their Aurora home, a property allegedly used to press the pills, according to the source.
Markham’s Chun Kit Wong, now charged with possessing items to make the drugs, allegedly supplied the needed chemicals to the other four accused, the source told the Toronto Sun.
The Asian Organized Crime Task Force was created in 2008 to fight organized crime within the Chinese community, OPP Deputy Commissioner Scott Tod said.
“The (AOCTF) has specific skill sets in regards to language and culture that are able to assist police forces in response to organized crime involving the Chinese community or (those who prey) upon the Chinese community,” Tod said.
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