Organized crime targeting Nunavut with drugs, RCMP says
Over $1.24 million worth of drugs seized in Iqaluit in the past two years
Justice Minister George Hickes and Nunavut RCMP commanding officer Chief Supt. Kent Pike say drug trafficking is on the rise in Nunavut during a Wednesday press conference in Iqaluit RCMP detachment. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
Canadian and international organized crime is driving the flow of illegal drugs into Nunavut where trafficking has been on the rise, says Chief Supt. Kent Pike, Nunavut RCMP’s commanding officer.
At a press conference Wednesday, RCMP show six kilograms of cocaine, $280,000 in cash and several illegal firearms. It’s a fraction of the amount of illegal substances and items seized by police in the past year. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
“These are large-scale organized efforts that people are bringing this poison into our territory,” added Nunavut Justice Minister George Hickes, speaking alongside Pike in a news conference Wednesday at the RCMP detachment in Iqaluit.
There are numerous avenues for drugs to enter the territory, including through Canada Post shipments and by people smuggling them from Yellowknife, Ottawa, Montreal or Winnipeg, Pike said.
In some cases, RCMP have found trafficking connections outside of Canada.
“Everything — no pun intended — is on the table,” Pike said, as he and Hickes sat next to a table holding six kilograms of cocaine, $280,000 in cash and several illegal firearms. They said it was only a fraction of the drugs and drug-related items seized by police over the past year.
Since the creation of Nunavut in 1999, RCMP have tracked increases in the amount of drugs trafficked and seized in the territory, Pike said.
For example, in 2025, police in Cambridge Bay seized 1.5 kilograms of cocaine worth an estimated $300,000.
Pike said trafficking drugs to Cambridge Bay led to several violent incidents last year that caused a stir in the community of about 2,000 people with many residents fearing for their safety.
Iqaluit has also recently seen a large increase in drug-related seizures — with approximately 6.2 kilograms of cocaine recovered by police in 2025, up from just 32 grams in 2024.
In total, $1.24 million worth of illegal drugs was seized in Iqaluit in 2024 and 2025 combined. Twenty-seven people were charged with drug-related offences
“So what we’re meaning to do is say, ‘No, this territory is not open for business for illegal activity,'” Pike said.
He encouraged people to report suspected drug traffickers, if not directly to the RCMP, then through an anonymous Crime Stoppers tip line.
Hickes said the Government of Nunavut wants to see security tightened at the Yellowknife airport, considered one of the big hubs for drug trafficking to Nunavut.
Currently, that airport doesn’t screen passengers who travel between the northern communities. Instituting that kind of screening would require changes to both territorial and federal legislation, he said.
“It can’t be understated how important it is to get ahead of this,” Hickes said.
“This isn’t somebody bringing up something to support their own addiction,” he said, noting the large amounts of drugs being seized. “There are organizations — as you can see, these [seizures] are in the kilograms.”
Are they just realizing this now? The North is Open Market with NO boarder control by any means of being a watch dog of these Hard Drugs coming to the North! “They stick out like a sore thumb at the Yellowknife, Ottawa airports”. Surely they can tell when they arrive into the small communities right? Did a guy get pointed out in Cam bay and he said he came to the wrong Cambridge? Lol
This information is very disheartening and disturbing. But, if you can find a silver lining, at least there appears to be little or no fentanyl or meth in the territory otherwise they would have talked about it. That stuff and fentanyl in particular is so devastating.
I also wonder who is buying the cocaine in Cambay and Iqaluit at northern prices? Not a poor person’s drug like meth and fentanyl/derivatives. How many of these cocaine buyers are government workers? So frightening that I won’t think about it.
You have two active mines in the Kitikmeot now with routine community flights because enough people are working from the communities.
That’s a gkkx
It is not coming through the mines. All the baggage is screened coming in and going out of them, plus anyone coming from the south is also screened down there.
I am in no way saying its coming through mines. I am saying people have more money now because we have more people working the mines here with 2 active mines. This means more disposable income.
Again, this is the same tale we have seen at Fort Mac. People start to make money and make poor decisions with their new found money.
Cant type on a phone!
You have two active mines in the Kitikmeot now with routine community flights because enough people are working from the communities.
That’s a good thing, brings disposable income for families and many posatives with it. It also brings disposable income for .. call it recreational activities. We have seen it time and time again during booms in the oil patch. Young people work rotation, earn decent money, come back and spend it on drugs, booze, etc. Its nothing new, we just have more money here now and as a result dealers know they can do more business.
That’s incorrect. They seized a monumental amount of fent, enough to harm everyone in town for scale. The incident was near middle school & the bomb squad from Ottawa had to be flown up to investigate. The street was shut down. The information is public knowledge, if I could link it I would. Crack is what is most used right now. Not long ago I saw in a family home, a coleman stove on the floor in the middle of the room “cooking” with kids running around. Awful stuff. It’s a lot more serious of an issue than Iqaluit is making it out to be. It’s in homes and being normalized to children…
Government workers, council members, board members of organizations… you’d be surprised at some who are buying.
Yes purchasing, but also using it as a tool to gain control/ favors of those suffering from addiction. Like much older men who are hanging out with young women. The cycle runs deep, trafficking is a major issue not being addressed. Its a shame there’s nowhere to send anonymous tips online. At least there would be somewhere to send the information that folks do have on sketchy behaviors/ concerns to help protect the women in our community..
How is it possible, in 2026, that there is someone who is not aware of crime stoppers?
Crime stoppers is for Karen’s, and it does nothing… I’m talking about a system in place that makes it EASY to leave anonymous tips. An Iqaluit specific one would make sense. Crime stoppers is just screaming into the void. Do you know how many reports they get from alllll over the godman place. We need a LOCAL one.
Really glad the airport security was mentioned. I understand that not every airport in Nunavut can have security due to the size of the airport and staffing issues, but there really is no reason why there shouldn’t be security from Yellowknife (and now Rankin Inlet too with their new airport opening). This would obviously help reduce trafficking of drugs and bootlegging, but also increase the safety of flights.
You think YK being a big population they would have security checks.
For clarification for any readers unfamiliar with the security situation at the Yellowknife airport; it’s similar to Iqaluit. Some gates/flights require screening (southern destinations like Edmonton or Calgary), but others, such as flights to other northern communities, do not.
The RCMP are great. But there are some long time members that need to be investigated.
Plus the Iqaluit airport security, K.N
If I understand right, you are aware of wrongdoings by some RCMP officers. If this is the case, it should be reported asap to the RCMP Public Complaint Commission.
They seriously need security measures in Yellowknife going north. Anyone can drive with pounds of coke, crack and laced marijuana in their bags from Edmonton to Yellowknife them hope on a plane and go north,
Let’s be honest, medical marijuana or dispensary marijuana has benefits and yeah do it if you want, People dont realize street marijuana can be laced with anything to make it more potent and desireable. It isn’t your Grampas weed, It’s scary stuff out there.
It’s sad to see people scared and look at the serious unsolved crime in Cambridge Bay. The GN, Municipal Government and Inuit Orgs need to step up and start protecting from hard drugs and the help and counseling for those addicted.
One idea that would help with the “Yellowknife loophole” (i.e. drug dealers driving to that city with drugs and then taking a standard flight to small Nunavut communities) is to require mandatory security screening for ALL flights leaving the Yellowknife Airport (not just the ones leaving for Southern cities).
I think its time to invest in Police dogs at the entry points via cargo / luggage handling portals, anything that comes up north whether its postal bags or even sea lift should get screened by trained K-9 support.
Its bad enough already. I think worth creating Gofundme page to raise funds for this if government is not serious about nipping it in the butt earlier!
As some of the commentators have already mentioned, it is not like this is something new. It’s been going on forever. Minister Hickes, the RCMP, Airport Authorities and the Government know this, they have known all of this, for a very long time. Does the RCMP do its best? For sure they do, but they are money, tools and personnel challenged.
Does anyone really believe that the large amounts of contraband entering the territory is actually coming through the conventional airport routes in a backpack or through Canada Post? Sure, some is but if in fact major organized crime syndicates are operating here as claimed, they are not operating like that.
Meanwhile, the focus seems to remain on the bigger Airports, but the reality is, there are numerous weak points that get overlooked or ignored beyond the lack’s major airports screening and verification. Here are a few that most people living and working in Nunavut already know about and it’s not the person with the backpack coming from Yellowknife
* How many private flights operated by various companies enter Nunavut each week? I will tell you. Dozens. These flights, often charters, often company owned, carry workers and others into the Territory. They do not operate under the same security measures applied in standard airports. They often leave from hangars owned either by the companies themselves or the charter business and they certainly do NOT apply the same processes as the screening in other airports required to board flights of major carriers. Do they apply some measures? Yes. Call them “hit and miss”. Do some do better than others? Sure. Watch as they will all run in to the comments here to tell you how much “better” their measures are but having used them for over 20 years, I can tell you they are NOT.
* Maritime Transport and Air Freight Cargo. Add these two into the mix based on the incredibly enormous amount of cargo traffic being hauled by maritime transporters (and regular air and charter companies) into the territory and you know right away that these carriers have not the methods nor the resources to scan and verify every seacan, crate, bundle, piece of equipment, etc.. that makes its way into Nunavut each and every sealift season and all during the year through the air. Is it not because they do not want to. It is because they simply and currently cannot.
The holes and vulnerability to mass importing into Nunavut is a broad-based challenge. The government and authorities already know this. However, the focus remains on the major airports screening. It is high time that the Government, RCMP and other authorities sit down and develop a multi-front strategy, program and plan that address ALL the access points to try and at the very least plug some of the holes and reduce the quantity being imported.
Of course, we all know around here that this will not happen, or if it does, will take an eternity (reports, analyses, reviews, document upon document, debate upon debate) and throw in a few Committee Hearings and some AG Reports to top it off.
All the while, the contraband will continue to enter. Nunavummiut’s will continue to be poisoned, the Social and Economic impacts of this will continue to be felt in each and every community. All the while the Government and MLA’s will continue to talk about birthdays and anniversaries in the LEG while doing little else.
OMG yes, the birthday and anniversary stuff is so tacky & unprofessional. Call cbc and leave your message there. Everyone knows everyone’s business anyways we got facebook.
The only way into nunavut is by air, they should have dogs and any aircraft (regular skid flight, charter, cargo) they all should be searched by the dogs.
Come on, this is nothing new.
It was Joe Biden’s presidency that sounded the alarm on Canada’s massive foreign criminal-controlled drug trafficking and manufacturing.
Trump’s presidency turned up the volume hard, laying it on Liberals to clean it up.
And for Canadians to look in the mirror to see what Canada really is, a criminal, money laundering drug manufacturing and world wide drug trafficking country.
Instead, Canada followed manufactured anger towards the USA to keep eyes closed.
Ports remain porous; manufacturing labs are expanding across Canada; courts won’t prosecute the big players, and if they do, the arrested still end up walking.
The low-hanging fruit arrests make the news and maybe get some jail time for the illusion all if fine.
While transnational organized crime syndicates, as if protected, flourish in Canada’s drug manufacturing and trafficking.
It’s easy to see open drug use and needles everywhere across Canada.
So, no surprise, the elimination of young men and women is ongoing across Nunavut.
Even pre and early teen girls are taking over the counter pills to overdose…. (like adults?).
All in silence, as Inuit Orgs and GN remain lip-sealed as if saying… “What me worry?” and “Who cares.”
Why is that? What’s going on?
These community’s in Nunavut everyone knows who the drug peddlers and boot leggers are but nobody stands up and says who they are,
That’s not true. The RCMP definitely name names and list charges on their website through press releases. Recently, many born and raised Nunavummiut have been charged with major trafficking crimes. Young adults with prominent parents.
Coke has picked up since the cartels put it online, easy to find just google search away and wait. Canada Post needs to hire more inspectors and inspect all mail not just some. Most is coming through your post office, the smaller the parcel the more dangerous the drug, impossible to tell without scanning, Canada Post knows the problem but cant stop it plus lots of money involved as the companies usually overpay for there shipping boxes and labels. Canada Post could have a system that weighs the parcels and rejects underweight and over payed ones but they need the $$. Weigh your next weed order and look at the Canada Post label I bet they dont match. BOOYAH
Where is the Mayor of Iqaluit comments? How about the MLA’s from Iqaluit? What about the Premier?
Our elected officials don’t have a voice or opinion on this?
They should be leading the battle is all of this and not sitting on the bench waiting for coach to put on the ice.
Made a complaint to the drug unit in Iqaluit 2 or 3 years ago. Bunch of workers got stuck in Milne Inlet from one of the shipping companies and they were in iqaluit over night. They were at the Storehouse and one of them walks up to us asking where to get coke. He bragged about bringing up coke to northern communities on the ship when they come up for sealift season. Probably didnt go to far in investigation.
Let me try again.
The town I live in (which happens to be prohibited to mention during commenting) has council members who sell cocaine, supports dealers, refuse to track down the other dealers and allows family struggles to continue.
Recently our something worker recently stole more than $9000 and I’m 99.99% sure the council members will just allow that person to walk free without punishment because that’s all they do, they don’t allow frauds to be charged because they too are frauds.
I said what I said and I will not apologize for it because we are expected to be quiet.
Air cargo, sealift, also some companies in Iqaluit laundry the money, bringing equipment different vehicles, set up services to clean the money.
It’s become very obvious.
Go to local parties and you will see where they come from.
6+ kilos this year compared to 32 g last. The people will not on their own stop using thus the authorities are doing well and right by cutting off the flow at the airport and shipping. Banishment need to be on the table as is being considered in neighboring Nunavik.
The traffickers are easy to spot… the ones in Cam Bay stuck out like sore thumbs … and had no idea how to survive here, too bad they can’t be snatched and shipped back to Vancouver