VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – BC’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit has assisted police in Ontario in a cross-Canada drug and money-laundering investigation.

Two arrests have been made locally — in Richmond and New Westminster — and six have been arrested in Ontario.

Ontario’s Asian Organized Crime Task Force has lead in this investigation, which began in April. The investigation was known as Project Lie See.

Yesterday morning, a 26-year-old man was arrested at a home in Richmond, while a 29-year-old man was picked up at a home in New Westminster. Both men have been remanded and plans are being made to send them to Ontario to face charges with the other suspects. All of the other arrests were made in the Greater Toronto Area.

“They’ve been charged with Trafficking in a Controlled Substance, Laundering Proceeds of Crime, Conspiracy to Commit and Indictable Offense, Possession of Proceeds of Crime, and Participating in a Criminal Organization. Gangsterism, basically,” says Detective-Staff Sergeant Dominic Chung with Ontario Provincial Police.

He says most of the Marijuana was seized in Vancouver.

“Just over 600lbs,” Chung adds. “And we seized in the neighbourhood of $660,000 cash. The bulk of that was seized in Ontario.”

Chung says police also recovered eight cars, including a “Porsche Panamera, a couple Infinitis” with a combined value estimated at about $300,000. In total, police seized around $2,000,000 worth of drugs, cash, and cars.

Police say it appears the drug ring was buying marijuana grown in BC.

“A lot of the marijuana is arriving in Ontario from BC,” Chung says. “But it’s very much a symbiotic relationship. The working relationship is very, very close, they work off each other, supplying each other, making loans to each other, laundering the proceeds and shipping the cash back and forth to each other as well.”

“Organized crime continues to spread its reach across Canada and the success of Project Lie See reaffirms that the intelligence sharing and cooperation between law enforcement throughout the country is unparalleled,” says CFSEU-BC spokesperson Sergeant Lindsey Houghton. “As criminals do business across Canada, so will we and it is essential that we continue to participate in coordinated investigations to make our country safer.”