The COVID-19 pandemic drastically reduced drug imports into the country and caused cocaine prices to skyrocket in Montreal.
Drug seizures by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) at its approximately 1,200 points of entry into the country during the months of March, April and May decreased by 68% compared to the same period the last year learned The newspaper.
Officers deployed at the Canada-United States border, at airports, international mail sorting centers and Canadian ports, seized drugs only 2,613 times during the three months of the pandemic, compared to 8,251 between March and May 2019 .
This is less than the monthly average of 2,750 that the CBSA had maintained last year, with a total of nearly 33,000 seizures from coast to coast, including almost two and a half tonnes of narcotic drugs in Quebec .
Quebec organized crime has nevertheless found ways to obtain cocaine from Colombia or Peru “but in very small volumes”, according to our information.
Soaring prices
As a result, the price per kilogram of cocaine has jumped more than 40% since March and currently stands at around $ 72,000 on the Montreal market. Elsewhere in Quebec, you can demand $ 75,000 per kilo.
For the past 20 years, the same brick of coke had sold for around $ 50,000, the price that had been set by the Hells Angels and the Rizzuto clan in the summer of 2000.
This increase extends to the price of a gram of cocaine, which almost doubled, from $ 80 to $ 150, according to our information.
Our police sources insist that there is “no shortage” on the Quebec market.
“But organized crime, which has been less inclined to take risks on imports, has played with supply by creating an artificial rise in prices,” said one.
Business in slow motion
The police expect this inflation in the drug market to continue at least until the fall, while waiting to see how the deconfinement will unfold. The Hells and the Mafia are “also affected” by the COVID-19 crisis, according to our sources.
The CBSA did not publicly report any significant seizures on Quebec territory during the past spring, either at the Port of Montreal or at Trudeau Airport, where it was estimated that the number of travelers would drop by 80% between April and June 2020 compared to last year.
The Agency ensures that “all travelers and goods entering Canada are still subject to the same examination and verification process as before the pandemic […], including by air, road, sea, rail and post. ‘
Falling drug seizures across the country
mars 2020 : 1234
mars 2019 : 3185
avril 2020 : 637
avril 2019 : 2009
May 2020: 742
May 2019: 3057
SOURCE: CANADA BORDER SERVICES AGENCY
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