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RCMP seize AK 47, amphetamines from storage locker

Inside a Whitehorse-area storage locker Wednesday afternoon police found a fully automatic AK-47, a sawed-off bolt-action shotgun, drugs and ammunition. Very few details of what happened are being made public at this point.
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Inside a Whitehorse-area storage locker Wednesday afternoon police found a fully automatic AK-47, a sawed-off bolt-action shotgun, drugs and ammunition.

Very few details of what happened are being made public at this point.

Police say they haven’t made any arrests. They aren’t releasing the location of the storage facility or the name that appears on the lease.

According to a news release, officers were acting on a tip from the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN) unit when they went to the locker around 2:30 p.m.

Police say 37.5 grams of amphetamines were seized with the ammo and illegal guns.

SCAN director Jeff Ford spoke to the News about SCAN earlier this week, before the RCMP found the weapons, about the outfit’s activities in 2014.

That year the unit investigated 55 complaints, which Ford considered average. These complaints usually involved illegal drugs or alcohol sales.

Yukon’s Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act allows officials to evict suspected drugdealers and bootleggers. Because it is civil, rather than criminal, legislation, investigators must only show that illegal activity is occuring on a “balance of probabilities,” rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Of the 2014 investigations, four led to evictions and five led to warnings. All of these evictions happened in Whitehorse.

Two of the 55 complaints involved bootlegging. The rest involved drug trafficking. Many of those cases involved crack cocaine, said Ford.

In all those cases, Ford said the evidence was “overwhelming.”

“We have a high number of visits to the property, we have other harms that the complainants have had such as noise or violence on the property, incessant or continuing traffic to or from the property, persons on the influence of drugs or alcohol driving in or on foot and in most cases very close proximity to children either in adjacent buildings or apartments.”

In one case a tenant in Granger in the autumn appeared to be making drugs in an apartment and was evicted.

“Which, number one is dangerous as a fire hazard, but also the fumes from that spreading to other parts of the apartment complex,” Ford said.

Contact Ashley Joannou at

ashleyj@yukon-news.com