Guelph police discover $80,000 narcotic stash
239.76 grams of heroin, 21.96 grams of crack cocaine, a loaded handgun, two arrests and over $3,000 in cold hard cash: While for many, this description may sound like the plot of a riveting Miami Vice episode, it is in actuality a real-life event that occurred at a residence just north of downtown Guelph on the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 10.
The Guelph Police Department first became aware of the residence at 58 Tiffany Street East after responding to a wanted persons claim late in the evening on Sept. 9, which led them to the address and resulted in the initial arrests of two men. After producing a search warrant for the home, officers returned to the residence to find a large stash of narcotics, believed to have a combined street value of about $77,300 – a sum that might make even Breaking Bad’s Walter White stop dead in his tracks. A loaded and unregistered handgun was also produced at the scene, as well as over $3,000 in cash, which was believed to have come from illegal distribution of the narcotics.
Following the search on the home, a 27-year-old Guelph man has been charged with two counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking and numerous firearms offences. A 25-year-old Guelph man has also been charged with two counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking, possession of a controlled substance, and numerous firearms offences.
In a small city like Guelph, where the most serious crimes are generally of the overdue library book or nosey neighbor variety, the arrests made Sept. 10 offer something of an anomaly to a crime trend that generally falls on the lighter side of the criminal spectrum. Guelph has long been known to be one of the safest places to live in Canada; a sort of haven if you will, where such serious crimes is often unheard of. Statistics from 2013 show that the city of Guelph had the second lowest Crime Severity Index in Canada for a community greater than 100, 000 people, just behind Barrie. Prior to the 2013 statistics release, Guelph spent five consecutive years at the top of the list.
While there’s no doubting the severity and sheer size of the arrests made on Sept. 10, Guelph will surely remain a safe and lovely place – yet perhaps not the utopia some once believed it to be.