Drugs

HALIFAX - A Halifax-area man accused of murder was allegedly one of the kingpins of a Colombian drug cartel before he was arrested on a Venezuelan beach and extradited back to Canada, officials in South America say.(CTV NEWS)

On April 30, members of the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team (ALERT) concluded Project Rocker by raiding three homes in Red Deer, where they seized three kilograms of cocaine, 2.8 kilograms of marijuana, a handgun and SKS rifle, four vehicles and $78,794 in cash. (Calgary Herald)

Times have changed in the Yonge St.- Eglinton Ave. area. Throw three massive temporary homeless shelters for the drug addicted into the mix — in the Roehampton Hotel and adjoining buildings on Broadway Ave. — and suddenly it has become a dangerous, syringe-ridden, crime-infested hellhole. (Toronto Sun)

VANCOUVER - Pig de-wormer, Comet, plaster and, increasingly, the infamously deadly opioid fentanyl. These are some of the substances Sarah Blyth and the Overdose Prevention Society find when they test street drugs brought in every week by users in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. (Vancouver Sun)

Several Metro Vancouver men are among the 13 arrested in Canada and the United States for their alleged role in an international drug smuggling operation that moved ecstasy into the U.S. in exchange for cocaine and methamphetamine. (The Province)

CANMORE - A massive drug bust in January is evidence that the black market for marijuana is still thriving, RCMP say. On Jan. 26, Mounties stopped a speeding pickup truck on the Trans-Canada Highway near Banff. (The Province)

A Canadian man was arrested in Australia and accused of being a representative of a “high-level transnational organized crime syndicate” that imported 645 kilograms of ecstasy cleverly hidden inside a shipment for barbecues. (The Province)

MONTREAL - Three full-patch members of the Hells Angels, including one of the biker gang’s founding members in Canada, and a member of the Repentigny police pleaded guilty to various drug trafficking charges at the Montreal courthouse on Wednesday. (Montreal Gazette)

PHILADELPHIA - One of the largest cocaine busts in United States history happened Tuesday in Philadelphia. Federal authorities continue to comb a cargo ship at Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia.(CBS)

VICTORIA - A painter at a B.C. shipyard was denied government security clearance partly because he is Facebook friends with people linked to outlaw bikers and drug traffickers. (The Province)