WUNNUMIN LAKE — Nishnawbe Aski police say they’ve made another drug trafficking-related arrest at Wunnumin Lake’s airport.
In a news release issued Friday afternoon, police said a 32-year-old woman from Wunnumin Lake was charged with possessing cocaine for the purpose of trafficking two days prior.
Police said, on July 9, they received a call for service at the airport in the remote community, which is located about 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay. Officers were told a suspect entered the First Nation with a quantity of suspected crack cocaine, NAPS said, adding that the drugs were seized and the accused was arrested “without incident.”
A similar situation unfolded in June, when a 22-year-old was arrested at the Wunnumin Lake airport and charged with possessing crack cocaine and a synthetic opioid for the purpose of trafficking. Police were also notified about that incident, according to a news release issued at the time.
NAPS also laid charges in a pair of drug-related cases at the airport in North Spirit Lake in June.
Scott Paradis, the media relations coordinator for the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service, said, especially in the summer, airports in the far north are how suspected traffickers get substances into the communities.
“I think it's more to do with the fact that these are remote communities, so the airports in the summer months (are) the exclusive kind of port of entry to a lot of these communities,” he said.
“A lot of people who are attempting to bring drugs into the communities are doing so through air travel.”
Paradis said it’s on a “case-by-case basis” as to who notifies police.
“It usually means that (officers) have received a call to attend the airport, to either assist or maybe some kind of incident has occurred, for one reason or another, a police presence was specifically requested.”
In Friday’s release, police said the 32-year-old appeared for a bail hearing on Thursday and was released with conditions and a future court date.
It is Newswatch policy not to name people facing criminal accusations when we are unlikely to follow the case to its conclusion in the courts.
