Canadian warship seizes 506 bags of heroin in Arabian Sea

OTTAWA - A Canadian warship on patrol in the Arabian Sea has made another big drug bust.

On Dec. 18, HMCS Toronto boarded a ship off the east coast of Africa carrying 506 bags of heroin, weighing more than 538 kilograms.

The Canadian Forces calls it the largest heroin seizure in the history of combined maritime forces operations.

The military says the drugs were catalogued and then destroyed.

This latest drug bust comes after HMCS Toronto intercepted and boarded a suspected smuggling vessel in October and seized 154 bags of heroin weighing more than 180 kilograms.

The frigate has made a number of drug seizures while on patrol in the past few months, including seizing 500 kilograms of heroin last March and about 5,950 kilograms of hashish in another boarding incident in May.

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  The Department of National Defence says the Canadian ship HMCS Toronto has seized around 500 kilograms of heroin, shown in a handout photo, from a boat in the Indian Ocean. (Department of National Defence / Cpl. Malcolm Byers, HMCS Toronto)

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  HMCS Toronto heads to the Arabian Sea as part of Operation Artemis, in Halifax on Monday, Jan.14, 2013. (Andrew Vaughan / THE CANADIAN PRESS)