How police fumbled one of N.L.'s biggest drug busts, allowing accused men to walk free

A group of alleged drug runners in St. John's have been let off the hook for now after police officers illegally searched a shipping crate that turned out to contain nine kilograms of cocaine.

The RCMP didn't have a warrant when officers entered a Mount Pearl transport warehouse in March 2019, but announced just days later that they'd completed Project Bowman, one of the biggest drug busts in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The cocaine was estimated to have a street value of up to $3 million.

But last month in provincial court, five men accused of trafficking that cocaine had their charges dismissed, due in part to the RCMP's error when officers found the drugs.

According to Judge Lori Marshall's decision, handed down in October, officers seized a wooden crate from the warehouse, brought it back to their headquarters and found the drugs in a hidden compartment at the bottom, even though there was no smell or visual evidence the crate contained anything illegal.

That crate had been shipped as freight from Brampton, Ont., but sat unclaimed for two days, prompting warehouse staff to look inside for contact information, they said.

They found only a few packages of floor tiles. Suspectingthe crate had a false bottom, they called police.

The warehouse manager testified he couldn't remember whether the officers or warehouse staff removed the crate's lid to look inside when the RCMP showed up.

Meanwhile, the two police officers who arrived on the scene that day contradicted each other in court: one saidneither cop unsealed the crate, while the other said one of them did in fact ask to borrow a drill to close the lid.

That meant Marshall couldn't agree with the prosecutors' argument that police had simply looked inside an already-open crate which would have been fair game under Canadian law. Instead, she concluded police had opened the crate without a warrant.

Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects against unreasonable search and seizure, and says police must have reasonable grounds to examine private property.

"There is no current legislation in place giving the police free access to inspect the contents of freight received on the premises of a private company," Marshall wrote, continuing that she didn't think police were acting on anything more than a "hunch."

She also worried the officers had knowingly breached charter rights.

"I am concerned that [the officer] was not only playing too close to the line in this situation, but that he may have crossed it," she said. "Such conduct cannot be condoned by the courts."

Their warrantless search of the crate, she decided, was therefore not justified and violated the charter.

"This practice of investigating crates on suspicion and then bootstrapping to justify reasonable grounds when something is discovered is exactly the type of state conduct that the charter protects against," she wrote. To allow the cocaine as evidence in the trial, Marshall continued, "would essentially be endorsing a police-state approach."

Search of home unreasonable

Police arrested the five men in 2019 after placing an electronic tracker inside the crate.

When one of the menpicked it up from the warehouse, officers followed the crate and arrested the five accused at a house on Empire Avenue.

They weren't alone, however; the mother and grandmother of two of the accused men were napping inside.

The 76-year-old mother testified she awoke to the sound of yelling and was "shocked" to find an entire SWAT team in her driveway. One of the officers pointed a gun at her as she opened the door, she said.

According to the woman, an officer told her to step outside, then ordered her to ask her own elderly mother to join her.

"She said she told him 'No,' she wasn't telling her mother to come out because she was 93 years old, was in her nightdress, and had the flu at the time," said the decision.

The woman saidpolice officers entered her home to search it without her permission.

Marshall determined the RCMP didn't have reasonable grounds to search either the home or the crate, leaving the Crown without crucial evidence and gutting their case.

Prosecutors can appeal Marshall's decision. Neil Smith, the lead prosecution lawyer,did not respond to CBC's requests for comment.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador