Barrie Police part of joint forces team involved in provincial drug seizure
180,000 cannabis plants confiscated
Ontario’s Provincial Joint Forces Cannabis Enforcement Team (PJFCET) has executed 152 warrants across Ontario, seizing 180,000 cannabis plants, thousands of pounds of dried cannabis, as well as edibles, concentrates and other illicit drugs. In addition, $5-million in Canadian currency and proceeds from crime have been confiscated.
More than 1,100 Cannabis Act and Criminal Code charges have been laid.
“The PJFCET’s initial focus was on storefronts and then shifted to the online space. Now, we are targeting the illegal cannabis sites where we see the magnitude of the scope of these illegal operations,” said Detective Inspector Jim Walker, OPP Organized Crime Enforcement Bureau, Provincial Joint Forces Cannabis Enforcement Team. “They are not small operations growing for personal use. They are lucrative criminal networks funding other criminality. This is organized crime at its highest level.”
These sophisticated operations exploit Health Canada registrations to produce or designate someone to produce, cannabis for medical purposes by diverting cannabis authorized to be grown for medical purposes to the illegal market.