TWO LOCAL people arrested in a Terrace-based multi-city drug bust by police two years ago have pleaded guilty.
Matthew Aaron Koepke, 21, pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine and ecstasy and Joseph Daniel Clement Belanger, 49, pleaded guilty to trafficking marijuana lin April, as reported in a police press release April 28.
In September 2008, more than 50 police officers in Terrace and Kelowna executed 12 search warrants in those communities as they closed in on a drug trafficking ring they had been investigating for a year, said police at that time.
The searches in Terrace included four houses, one hotel room and one industrial shop, and resulted in the arrests of three men.
Police seized three firearms, three vehicles, a small quantity of marijuana and $10,000 cash and two locked safes – one was empty and the other contained two loaded handguns, said police at that time.
Police alleged that the Terrace-based drug trafficking ring brought drugs—cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana—from Vancouver to Kelowna for repackaging before it was redistributed in the Terrace and Prince Rupert areas.
Belanger has a sentencing date of September 22 here.
Koepke is scheduled for a hearing on June 20 here.