USA Today
LOS ANGELES — Federal investigators said Thursday that they had broken an extensive criminal network that used fast, low-flying helicopters to smuggle a potent form of marijuana across the border from Canada through remote Western public lands.
The smugglers sometimes returned to British Columbia with loads of cocaine from the USA aboard the same aircraft, authorities said.
Joined by Canadian law enforcement authorities, officials with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement and other agencies said at a news conference in Bellingham, Wash., that 45 people have been indicted in the USA and more than 40 arrested as a result of the two-year investigation.
They called it one of the most brazen criminal schemes ever uncovered along the 4,000-mile U.S. border with Canada.
Posted by Richard at June 30, 2006