Forty-Three People Are Facing Charges After a Major Fentanyl Bust in Canada

When the anti-gang task force in British Columbia, Canada announced a major drug bust around the northeastern town of Dawson Creek on Friday, it sparked a lot of speculation about how organized crime is evolving in the region. Over the last year and half, the sleepy town right by the Alberta border has seen an uptick in violent crimes that police have linked to drug trade.

Just across that eastern border, Grande Prairie was named Canada's violent crime capital in 2015—a point stressed by local observers on social media.

We asked experts on the case if that's a signal of growing inter-provincial drug trade. But the police VICE spoke to say the pile of drugs they seized following a one-year investigation wasn't coming from or going to Alberta. More likely it's coming from lower mainland suburbs to meet the recreational demands of oil and gas workers in BC, according to anti-gang investigators.

"Almost all of the drugs we were finding were going from southwest BC, Metro Vancouver area up into north and central BC to the Peace region," Sgt. Lindsey Houghton of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit told VICE. "The final destination for these groups was the Peace region."

Houghton said upwards of 150 charges against 43 people are in the works—only three were named Friday—and firearms, cocaine, fentanyl, GHB, meth, and tens of thousands of dollars in cash were picked up in the raids. All told, cops nabbed three guns (including one AR-15), 74 ounces of coke, 700 pills of the deadly opioid fentanyl, and 6.25 cups of the date rape drug GHB.

Jamie Christopher St. Denis, 38, already pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine, trafficking a firearm, and possession of an illegal firearm, and has been sentenced to seven years. Christina Marie MacKay, 30, faces possession and trafficking charges in court next month.

Houghton says these were low and mid-level dealers, not top rung gang members. In his view, the charges don't signal a major shift in the way drugs are moving throughout the province. Most are five or six degrees removed from the major players in the Metro Vancouver area, but have contact with some of the people recently caught in several lower mainland lab busts.

At least one of the accused has gone to jail for killing someone before. Ryan Holden was found guilty of manslaughter in 2011 after he shot a guy in a parking lot in broad daylight back in 2007. He was sentenced to ten years, but only served two after being given credit for the years he spent in custody awaiting trial. This time he's charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking and five weapons-related offenses.

In the meantime, police are still looking for 14 other suspects in connection with the investigation.

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