When Michel found a large package of cannabis, cell phones and other contraband hanging from his clothing line in Montreal, he was shocked.
The merchandise found by Michel, whose identity is being protected for security reasons, was valued at approximately $45,000. It would have ended up on the black market when it got to its rightful destination – the Bordeaux prison.
“I live more than four kilometers from the prison. The whole family is still amazed to have found this package, which clearly fell from a drone accidentally,” he said.
Michel immediately called the police to get rid of the sealed package seven meters long.
“There was little chance of that package falling out of the sky at my house,” he said.
“Personally, I would have loved to have won an amount with Loto-Québec!”
According to Radio-Canada police sources, the rolled-up package contained nearly a kilogram of cannabis, hashish, tobacco, a homemade knife and miniature cellphones with SIM cards that allow access to the LTE network.
“On the face of it, it was an air delivery that had to be delivered right to the window of a cell,” said Mathieu Lavoie, president of the union of peace officers in Quebec’s correctional facilities.
He says the serpentine shape allows inmates to slide the package’s contents between the very narrow prison bars.
“Considering that cannabis alone sells five times more than it does on the street indoors, more than $45,000 worth of a package was lost to organized crime,” Lavoie said.
“There’s someone somewhere who just got into deep debt with a criminal organization because they couldn’t complete the delivery as planned.”
The package found in Michel’s backyard has been taken in for analysis and its contents will be burned, Montreal police said.
Expensive contraband from the black market
According to the union, cannabis costs around $50 a gram in prisons, while cannabis bought on the street costs around $10 a gram. A $200 SIM card costs around $1,000 in prison.
A Montreal police officer, who is not authorized to comment on the incident, said biker gangs control the lucrative black market of Quebec’s provincial jails.
Montreal police receive more than 300 complaints a year from residents complaining about drones, according to Radio-Canada. Complaints sometimes also concern suspicious packages found on properties near prisons.
