A day after B.C.'s chief coroner announced that more than 2,200 people had died from drug overdoses in the province in 2021, a Lower Mainland RCMP detachment is touting its largest-ever seizure of fentanyl, the drug implicated in most of the province's overdose deaths.
Ridge Meadows RCMP said in a news release Thursday that a seven-month, multi-jurisdictional investigation had led to the seizure of more than six kilograms of suspected fentanyl, as well as other drugs, weapons and cash.
The investigation began in June, with officers from the detachment's street enforcement unit looking into "alleged street-level drug activity," police said in their release.
The investigation led to properties in Maple Ridge and New Westminster, for which police eventually obtained and executed search warrants.
Officers executed the warrants on Feb. 2, seizing what police described as 63,120 illicit doses of fentanyl, some of which were already packaged for sale, as well as more than a kilogram of suspected crack and powder cocaine and 625 grams of suspected methamphetamine.
Police also seized a nine-millimetre handgun and ammunition, body armour, three vehicles and more than $31,000 in cash.
One man and one woman were arrested in connection to the investigation, police said, adding that the suspects had not yet been charged and their names would therefore not be released.
The 63,120 doses of fentanyl seized represent the Ridge Meadows detachment's largest-ever seizure of the drug, according to RCMP.
That number works out to more than three doses for every person in the City of Pitt Meadows, based on 2021 census data. It's also enough to provide one dose to two-thirds of the residents of the City of Maple Ridge.
Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge are the two municipalities that the Ridge Meadows RCMP serve.
"This is why we do the work we do, to keep people safe," said Sgt. Chris Kelly, the unit commander for the detachment's street enforcement unit, in the news release.
"The strategic and collaborative use of police resources in this investigation has resulted in one of the largest amounts of dangerous drugs seized before being illicitly sold on the streets of our communities."
