Canada: Crime Stoppers puts bounty on heads of meth dealers

WINNIPEG — Metham-phetamine dealers and those who make the highly addictive street drug now have a special bounty on their heads thanks to the province’s cash-for-tips Crime Stoppers program.

Starting tomorrow, Crime Stoppers will double the reward for information on the making and sale of methamphetamine anywhere in Manitoba.

It means a tipster — all tips are anonymous — can earn as much as $4,000 with a single call, if that information pans out with a significant seizure or arrest. This doubling up of reward money runs until the end of February and also features a public information campaign on the drug.

“This is about Manitobans getting together to stop the scourge of meth,” Manitoba Justice Minister Gord Mackintosh said. “We have to send a message to youth: Don’t try this — not even once.”

RCMP Sgt. Larry Renkas said this is the first time the three branches of Crime Stoppers in Manitoba have come together to work on a single project. RCMP, Winnipeg police and Brandon police each have a Crime Stoppers program.

RCMP Assistant Commissioner Darrell Madill and Brandon police Chief Richard Bruce said the project is counting on Manitobans of every stripe to supply information.

“Unfortunately, meth works like a cancer cell,” Bruce said. “If we don’t do something about it, it will consume us.”

The Crime Stoppers meth reward program comes two weeks after city police made the largest seizure of methamphetamine in Winnipeg. Officers seized two kilograms of methamphetamine at a downtown hotel and charged two Vancouver men with trafficking. Police pegged the street value of the drug at $90,000.

Winnipeg Crime Stoppers chairman Gerry Pope said the volunteer organization also acted because of the series of Free Press stories in December detailing methamphetamine addiction and Canada’s lack of controls to stop production of the drug.

“We want to get information out and stay ahead of the curve,” he said, adding methamphetamine addiction and related crime are far worse south of the border.

Crime Stoppers was set up 22 years ago with a simple mission: To help police catch criminals.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Tue, 31 January 2006
Source: The Brandon Star (Canada)
Author: Bruce Owen
Contact: http://www.brandonsun.com/contact.php
Website: http://www.brandonsun.com/