29 arrested on Mohawk reserves

MONTREAL - Twenty-nine people were arrested yesterday as police forces staged drug raids on Mohawk reserves near Montreal, dismantling an alleged drug pipeline into Ontario and the United States.

More than 300 officers in 15 raids netted barrels of marijuana worth an estimated $1-million, bundles of cash totalling $2-million, four machine guns, three grenade launchers and other assorted weapons.

Police said they made a serious dent in a multi-mil-lion-dollar marijuana operation on the native reserves of Kahnawake, Kanesatake and Akwesasne in western Quebec.

"We're sending a message," Gorden McGregor, head of the Quebec First Nations Chiefs of Police Association, said. "Drugs are not acceptable in our communities, clear and simple. It comes down to us. If we don't stop this, who will?"

Along with the nearly 115 kilos of marijuana, police also seized 10 luxury vehicles, including high-end SUVs and at least one sports car -- a Ford GT-- worth $250,000. "Not just everyone has these in their homes," Dwayne Zacharie, chief of the Peace Keepers in Kahnawake, on the South Shore, said of the seized AK-47 and M-16 machine guns.

One of those arrested was Daniel Dwayne Delisle Jr., 43, of Kahnawake. Police allege he led the ring that took marijuana grown in Mascouche and Chateauguay, near Montreal, and shipped it to the United States through the porous international border inside the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve, which straddles the St. Lawrence River and the borders of Ontario, Quebec and New York state.

The drugs were smuggled by boat in the summer and by trucks and skidoo on ice bridges in the winter, explained Ser-geant Michael Harvey of the RCMP's customs and excise section.

Some stuffed the marijuana in hockey bags, he said. "They just bring it in through St. Regis, Quebec, and along the main road in Akwesasne. It's a high volume operation. [Smaller] arrests are made all the time" on both the Canadian and the U.S. side, he said.

The drug's street value in the United States is double what it is in Canada, Sgt. Harvey said.

Chief Zacharie said there was some unease due to the arrests in Kahnawake, where many of the 8,000 residents are extended family members. "We still have to live with the fallout from this," he said. "I want to make sure the community is safe for my family and everyone else's family."

Of the 22 men and seven women arrested, ages 23 to 60, eight live in Kahnawake, 10 in Akwesasne, one in the Kanesetake Mohawk reserve near Montreal and 10 in Montreal. They face charges of gangsterism, drug exportation, illegal weapons possession, drug possession, drug trafficking, conspiracy to traffic drugs, conspiracy to export drugs and drug manufacturing. Police are still searching for two more suspected smugglers.

Three hundred police officers, including the Kahnawake and Akwesasne Peace Keepers, worked with RCMP and Surete du Quebec on what was known as Operation Cancun, since January, 2007. Officers with the Ontario Provincial Police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency assisted.