Police dismantle Lower Mainland drug super lab, 5 men from B.C. charged
SURREY — Provincial Mounties say charges have been approved against five B.C. men for their role in what authorities are calling a complex, multi-jurisdictional investigation that led to the dismantling of a large drug superlab, massive ecstasy seizure and a raid of four properties involved in the drug trade.
According to a statement from Sgt. Shawn MacNeil, media relations officer for the Federal Serious & Organized Crime division in Surrey, the Pacific Region Federal Policing Progam’s Clandestine Laboratory Enforcement and Response (CLEAR) team oversaw an investigation that began in spring 2022 and eventually resulted in the identification of multiple people and properties suspected of being involved in the production and trafficking of MDMA, also known as ecstasy.
Police say Dennis Halstead, Shawn Cappis, Balbinder Johal, Richard Waugh and Christopher Alves have all since been charged with multiple offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), with court appearances scheduled for Wednesday, August 14, 2024.
On August 17, 2022, the CLEAR team, with the assistance of other RCMP units, executed four search warrants on properties located in Maple Ridge and Coquitlam. Subsequent to the raids, police arrested five people on scene and identified what they call a “large sophisticated, economic-based synthetic drug lab” that was capable of producing multi-kilograms of MDMA per cycle.
