THUNDER BAY — Thunder Bay police say a pair of targeted drug trafficking investigations has resulted in the seizure of over a million dollars’ worth of illegal substances, along with cash, weapons and vehicles.
On Tuesday afternoon, police presented the findings of two recent drug trafficking investigations: Project Decoy, which ran from October to December 2024 and Project Incognito, which Det. Sgt. Chris Carlucci told reporters is a still-ongoing spinoff of Project Decoy, but has already seen the arrests of seven people, the seizure of over $350,000 in drugs, three firearms and a pair of vehicles.
Over $750,000 worth of drugs was seized in Project Decoy, police said, along with about $160,000 in cash, three handguns, a shotgun and one vehicle. It led to the arrests of 38 people with a total of 215 charges.
The combination of drugs and weapons continues to be concerning, Carlucci said.
“I think it definitely highlights the demand of illicit drugs,” he said, adding that both investigations spanned over nine weeks.
“If you look, we're seizing over a million dollars worth of drugs in a very short period of time, not to mention seven firearms as well, which I think speaks to the level of violence that is present in this area.”
The operations received funding from the Ontario government, police said, including Criminal Intelligence Service Ontario, a partnership between the province and law enforcement with the aim of targeting organized crime.
Of the 45 people arrested in the two projects, 25 were from the city, Carlucci said. The other 20 were classified as non-local or non-district residents, but Carlucci said “for the most part (they were from) southern Ontario.”
He said that more than 20 search warrants were executed between the two projects.
The operations targeted street-level purchases and following up on complaints from people in the city about suspected drug activity, police said.
“The goal of this project was not only to identify people coming into our community, but also to target those local residents who are assisting in this behaviour as well,” Carlucci said.
He added that, while he understands that it can be frustrating for locals who may not see immediate results when they call to report suspected drug activity, Carlucci said the conclusion of operations like this prove that complaints are taken seriously.
“These projects are clearly evidence of that, although at times it may be frustrating for the everyday citizen to continually contact Crime Stoppers or report to the police — they may feel at times that those are never going answered,” he said.
“However, these investigations show as proof that we take these matters very serious, and every tip that comes through Crime Stoppers, every report that has a sense of a drug aspect is reviewed by our officers.
Carlucci said that these operations started by doing street-level enforcement — he said, ultimately, investigators were surprised by what they uncovered.
“I think we were very shocked in regards to the amount of quantity of drugs that we were seizing as part of our investigations,” he said.
The more significant arrests and seizures stemming from the two investigations have been previously reported on a case-by-case basis.
