Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Mounties seize 7 tonnes of hash in Montreal

Cbc News:Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The Mounties have seized a container packed with enough hashish – about seven tonnes – to intoxicate a country as large as Canada. Police in Montreal discovered the seven-million gram hashish stash in an abandoned trailer in the LaSalle borough on the weekend, the RCMP said. "It's a big one," said RCMP spokesman Cpl. Luc Thibault, describing the cache of hash bricks, each about the size of a laptop computer, found boxed and wrapped in denim clothing. "It's black and compact, like Plasticine." The Mounties say the whole trailer was packed with boxes of the illegal substance, which is a resin-like paste derived from cannabis leaves, seeds and stems. The seizure is the largest one the Montreal-based RCMP detachment can remember, Thibault said, declining to put an exact dollar figure on the stash. "There's a lot of money involved in that – especially the street value. That's for sure."According to a 2007 RCMP drug report, hash was selling at an average $10 per gram on the street.Demand for hash is highest in eastern urban centres, primarily Montreal and Toronto.

Police said they received a call from someone about a trucking container sitting in a storage lot in the west-end borough.Officers moved in on the weekend after obtaining a search warrant. Authorities are asking for public help to drum up new leads in their investigation. No arrests have been made. Reports suggest the hashish originated in Pakistan, one of the world's leading producers of the cannaboid resin.Morocco, Afghanistan, Nepal, India and Jamaica are also large hash producers.

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