Ontario Provincial Police have arrested three men and seized over 1,000 kilos of pure cocaine, making it the biggest single drug bust in OPP history.
Details of the investigation, dubbed Project HOPE, were announced Monday at a news conference at OPP headquarters in Orillia.
Police estimated the street value of the drugs, once cut, to be $250 million.
They described Project HOPE as an intercontinental investigation involving the OPP Organized Crime Enforcement Bureau and Provincial Operations Intelligence Bureau in partnership with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), Peel Regional Police, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.
During the course of the investigation, police identified three individuals responsible for importing large quantities of cocaine from Argentina in shipping containers carried by ocean-going vessels. The ships were unloaded in Montreal with the intent of distributing the cocaine in Ontario.
Various caches of cocaine were located at a CBSA warehouse, at the Port of Montreal and in Stoney Creek, Ontario.
The three suspects are all from the Greater Toronto Area.
