BELLINGHAM, Wash., June 30 (UPI) -- A joint U.S.-Canadian investigation has grounded a group accused of using helicopters and planes to ferry drugs from British Columbia across the border.
The two-year effort was nicknamed Operation Frozen Timber. On Thursday, agencies from the two countries announced the arrest of 46 people and the seizure of four tons of marijuana, 800 pounds of cocaine, aircraft and $1.5 million in cash, the Seattle Times reported.
Investigators believe the group took to the air because the crackdown on the northern border after the terrorist attacks of 2001 made trucking drugs into the United States far more difficult.
"We've had air smuggling on the southern border for years, but it's new
to us on the northern border, in these types of numbers," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Seattle.
Daryl Desjardins, owner of The Breakwater, a popular restaurant on Harrison Lake in British Columbia, allegedly served as a middleman, helping several organized crime groups from outlaw motorcycle gangs to immigrant gangs from Southeast Asia, the Vancouver Sun reported. He was arrested in May.
