Police in Canada have charged a Toronto reggae singer and three others in a scheme to allegedly smuggle cocaine into Canada hidden in hollowed out fruits from Guyana.
The arrests stemmed from a seizure last week of 20 kilos of coke allegedly stashed in hollowed-out star apples that arrived at Pearson Airport in an air freight shipment destined for a nonexistent Toronto business.
Police alleged the coke, which was seized from fruits that were contained in 17 boxes was worth more than five million Canadian dollars.
The Mounties alleged the star apples were part of a larger shipment that included pineapples and mangoes that were sent from Guyana.
Officers conducted a controlled delivery of the package to those allegedly responsible for the shipment, police said. The Mounties alleged the suspects had helpers in Guyana and the U.S. “We have successfully interdicted several cocaine shipments in recent months,” said RCMP Superintendent Rick Penney, the GTA’s drug enforcement commander.
“As we identify and stop methods employed by organised crime groups, they will come up with new ways to bring drugs into Canada.” Goran Vragoic, regional director general of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA,) said the drugs were intercepted before they hit the streets.
“CBSA officers are the first line of defence and are trained to stop narcotics at the border,” Vragovic said. Charged with a slew of drug related offences are Basil Barnett Blair, 63, and Metussala ‘Mandela’ Mannings, 27, both of Toronto, Susan Geneva O’Neil, 28, of Scarborough, and Kenneth Arthur Wong, 38, of Ajax.
They appeared for a hearing on February 2, in Brampton Court. Mannings has been playing reggae music in Toronto and elsewhere with a number of bands for many years.
Meanwhile RCMP Staff Sergeant Kevin Nicholson said there was no concern of the fruit entering the food chain. Much of it was “mush” by the time it arrived in Canada, he said. The shipment raised flags because Guyana is not known to export a lot of fruit to Canada, Nicholson added.
However, a federal government website says that in 2008, Canada imported US$ 225 million in goods from Guyana, including “precious stones and metals, beverages, mineral ores, fish and seafood, and fruits and nuts.” The seizure comes on the heels of an announcement late last month that authorities had seized 28 kilogrammes of cocaine — with an estimated street value of CD$3.5 million — in two shipments of hollowed-out pineapples from Guyana at the port in Saint John, New Brunswick.
The drugs were discovered using X-ray technology and drug-sniffing dogs. Now that authorities have caught on to the use of fresh fruit to smuggle cocaine, it is likely that suppliers will move on to another technique, Nicholson said.
In December, CBSA officials announced that 310 kilogrammes of cocaine — with an estimated street value of CD$ 14 million — had been concealed in a shipment of sunflower oil bottles from Bolivia.
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