VICTORIA -- Victoria police have arrested a man and seized a kilogram of highly concentrated fentanyl with an estimated street value of more than $1 million.
Victoria police and the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team made the bust on the afternoon of Oct. 21 at a residence on Dallas Road.
Investigators say police are recommending charges of drug trafficking against one man.
Two men from Surrey and a man and woman from Vancouver are also facing related trafficking charges, police said Thursday.
Police say Health Canada drug analysis found the seized fentanyl was rare and highly concentrated.
“Health Canada confirmed it has a concentration of 90 per cent fentanyl, which his rare and extremely troubling,” said acting Victoria police Insp. Conor King. “Typically samples are found to contain on average 10 per cent fentanyl.”
Police say only one sample found in Canada last year tested over 75 per cent, while this year seven samples have now tested over that threshold. "What it tells us is there's an upward trend of toxicity right across the nation," King said.
Investigators estimate the seized drug could supply approximately 495,000 lethal doses. “The dangerously high concentration of this seized fentanyl, in this amount, would undoubtedly have resulted in more deaths,” police said in a statement.
“This significant seizure of high-concentration fentanyl comes in the midst of a provincial opioid crisis,” Victoira police Chief Del Manak said Thursday.
