REGINA – A number of people involved in a recent major drug bust were called before Judge M. T. Beaton in Regina Provincial Court this morning.
Braylen Blake Breton, 22, and Courtney Austin, 36, of Moose Jaw; Jamie Neufeld, 41, of Weyburn; Zlatko Mandaric, 41, of Burnaby; Wilton Wyatt Paskemin of Edmonton; and Mile Majstrorovic of Vancouver had all matters moved to Aug. 28 for further proceedings.
Earlier this month, co-accused Mitch L Schoffer, 40, of Moose Jaw and Nikola Galic, 27, of Burnaby also had their matters adjourned.
A total of 10 people were arrested at the culmination of a year-long investigation involving 17 police services, disrupting the flow of certain drugs through Western Canada. As a result of the May 11 and 12 search warrants, a large amount of illegal drugs were seized, including around 3.36 kg of MDMA, 8.95 kg of cocaine, and 28.17 kg of methamphetamine. Those individuals arrested face a combined 54 criminal charges including trafficking, possession of drugs, possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000, conspire to commit trafficking, and conspire to commit possession of property over $5,000.
“This investigation has demonstrated the presence of illicit drugs in small towns and rural areas – it is not strictly a big city issue. When we look at the impact of drug trafficking in our communities, there is violence and property crime. We know the abuse of drugs fuels deadly addictions which ruin the lives of Canadians every day – this is evident in the information we have released about fatal overdoses in our rural Saskatchewan communities,” said Inspector Andrew Farquhar, Officer in Charge of RCMP Federal Serious and Organized Crime in Saskatchewan, at the time of the bust. “Our goal is to prevent illicit drugs from entering our communities in the first place.”
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