Mounties announce $120M drug seizures

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TORONTO, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Canadian authorities said they intercepted about $120 million worth of hashish and a date-rape chemical from Asia in a months-long investigation.

At a Toronto news conference Monday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canada Border Services Agency said two separate investigations that began last year netted 5.7 tons of hashish from Afghanistan and a shipment from China of 765 gallons of gamma-butyrolacton, a key ingredient in the date-rape drug GHB, the Toronto Sun reported.

Three people from the Toronto area were arrested while picking up the GHB shipment, but officials said they weren't the ringleaders, CTV News reported.

Five Toronto men and one from Europe were arrested in the hashish case, the Sun said.

The hashish had been compressed into the hollowed-out centers of wood panels, while the liquid chemical for GHB was in plastic drums labeled as kitchen grease remover, police said.

The separate investigations began months ago based on intelligence from Asia and Eastern Europe. Mounties and border agents monitored the shipments as they moved by train across Asia and Europe, and ship into Toronto.

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson said the decision was made to wait for suspects to claim the drugs, which he acknowledged was a "risky proposition," the Sun said.