Fentanyl, meth, crack seized in landmark Grande Prairie drug bust

Illegal drugs with a street value of nearly $250,000 wereseized from four Grande Prairie homes in a landmark bustby the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams.

Thebust is one of the largest seizures ever in the northern Alberta city, ALERT officialssaid in a news release Wednesday.

'A real feather in ALERT's cap'

Organized crime and gang teams searched the four properties on Sept. 1.

Nearly $20,000 in cash and aMercedes-Benz SUV were seized. The drugs recovered included:

• 1.3 kilograms of powder and crack cocaine
• 573 grams of methamphetamine
• 1,476 fentanyl pills
• 20 grams of marijuana

The bust is ALERT's largest drug seizure in Grande Prairie since October 2014, when 1.8 kilograms of cocaine and more than 1,800 fentanyl pills were seized during an investigation.

Most of the drugs were seized from a home in theRiverstoneneighbourhood.

"Taking a quantity of drugs such as this off the streets of Grande Prairie is a real feather in ALERT's cap,"Insp. Dave Dubnyk, officer in charge of regional teams with ALERT said in a statement.

"With the help of our partners in the RCMP, we're doing everything we can to make Grande Prairie a safer place for families to live."

Two men, ages29 and59, have each been charged with three counts of possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking. The younger accused has also been charged with two counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count of possession of proceeds of crime.