An Inspector with the RCMP says Project Broken holds even greater significance because it took three major drug traffickers off the streets.
Project Broken led to the province’s largest seizure of illicit cash as part of an investigation into organized crime. $840,000, six kilograms of cocaine, firearms and vehicles were seized for a total value of $1.4 million. It has now led to guilty pleas and incarceration for three major drug traffickers charged in that investigation.
Inspector Stefan Thoms says Jonathan Brandon Mahon of St. John’s was slapped with a 7.5 year sentence and a fine of just under $200,000 on December 10th, 2020, for the offences of Conspiracy to Traffic Cocaine, Possession of the Proceeds of Crime, Money Laundering, Careless Storage of a Firearm and Possession of an Unauthorized Firearm.
Michael Douglas Smith of Montreal and his common-law spouse, Charlotte Toomey, both pled guilty in Quebec. Thomas Scott Brown of St. John’s was sentenced to 3.6 years.
Thoms says this group will not be functioning due to jail sentences, meaning they will be off the streets for a significant period.
He believes the sentence was fair based on precedent in the province.
Thoms acknowledges that there will always be cocaine coming into the province, but says each time they make an arrest like this it does have a significant impact.
He says their objective is to identify, disrupt and dismantle criminal networks responsible for the scale of drug trafficking they’re seeing at this level, and they’ll continue to do that diligent work.
Thoms expects two more people to plead guilty in relation to Project Broken in the coming weeks.
