19 guns, $8.4M in drugs seized in London since July: Police

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The cache of guns and illicit drugs displayed at London police headquarters is evidence the city is becoming safer, the police chief says.

The 19 guns and drugs valued at more than $8.4 million – including 14 kilograms of cocaine and 16.9 kilograms of fentanyl – were seized in investigations across the city since July, resulting in 70 people charged with a combined 531 offences, police said Wednesday.

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“Our enforcement efforts have delivered significant results. We have seized large quantities of dangerous drugs, including fentanyl and carfentinel. We’ve also removed illegal firearms from our streets,” Chief Thai Truong said at a news conference showcasing the guns and drugs.

Truong singled out the seizure of fentanyl – a synthetic opioid more than 100 times more potent than morphine – as especially significant, citing its oversized role in London’s drug crisis that has killed 120 people annually, on average, over the past five years.

“The stakes could not be higher,” he said.

The force’s largest seizure of fentanyl was recorded last week when police seized 12.4 kilograms of the drug, along with four handguns and other drugs, from the home of a suspect in a Nov. 19 shooting at a public housing building, police said.

There has been a 48 per cent reduction in gunfire in London this year, Truong said, and the city saw it largest reduction in the country, at 14 per cent, in the crime severity index in 2023.

Those statistics, along with the seized guns and drugs, shows the record-setting investment in policing is working, said Truong, who pledged to make the city safer when he became chief in June 2023.

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City council approved the four-year, $672-million police budget earlier this year, including a 28 per cent increase in spending this year.

Mayor Josh Morgan, a member of the city’s police board, said the budget was a vote of confidence in the police leadership to make the necessary changes and investments to create a safer city.

“How many Londoners. . . would be harmed if these things were out on the streets and not in this room?” Morgan said of guns and drugs on display at police headquarters.

Some of the people charged and items seized had been announced previously, while details of other cases were made public for the first time Wednesday.

Twenty-four of the 70 people charged were on bail or under some sort of other conditional release from custody, police said.

Among those two dozen people is Ali Bhatti, whose girlfriend Lynda Marques was gunned down in the couple’s driveway two years ago.

Bhatti, 30, was charged with gun and drug offences after police seized five handguns, ammunition, a silencer and extended magazines, cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, fentanyl, prescription pills, cash and other items on Nov. 8, police said.

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At the time of his latest arrest, Bhatti was already facing drug possession charges from June and had been released on an undertaking that prohibited him from possessing any weapons.

Bhatti was released on bail on Nov. 25.

Asked how it feels when individuals facing charges are re-arrested only to be released again, the head of the guns and drugs sections replied: “It’s frustrating.

“We’re doing all we can to hold these individuals accountable,” Det.-Sgt. Josh Silcox said.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

BY THE NUMBERS

(Details of London police investigations since July involving guns and drugs)

16.9: Kilograms of fentanyl seized

14: Kilograms of cocaine

318: Kilograms of cannabis

27: Kilograms of pot products

2: Kilograms of methamphetamine

2.8: Grams of magic mushrooms

19: Guns

$650,000: Cash

70: People charged

531: Charges laid

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