The smell of pot is everywhere in the Windsor Police Services building.
It’s not that police officers are toking, it’s that the smell of the 491 pounds of marijuana seized last week and stored in a basement locker in the garage is travelling throughout the building. The 10-foot-by-10-foot storage locker is three-quarters full of black garbage bags and plastic Rubbermaid bins stuffed with dried marijuana that was ready for processing.
The seizure of $2.1 million of marijuana is one of the biggest this year for the regional drug squad comprised of officers from Windsor, LaSalle and Amherstburg and known as the Provincial Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy or PAVIS. Police discovered the drugs almost by accident.
According to police Sgt. Matthew D’Asti, authorities were called while two men went door-to-door at 5:28 a.m. on Nov. 14 in the 8400 block of County Road 10 in Amherstburg. The men were offering money to anyone who could tow a car from a ditch they’d fell into while backing out of a driveway.
When police arrived, they found several pounds of marijuana in the car and arrested two men. They got a search warrant and discovered in an barn at the rear of the property hundreds of pounds of marijuana mostly stored in buckets. They seized 63 buckets, 17 bins and 18 large bags of drugs.
D’Asti said the property appeared to be a “processing and packaging” facility.
Seven people were arrested in association with the drug bust. Tiffany Natywary, 37, and Tyler Natywary, 18, are both of Amherstburg, while Benjamin Hetra, 25, and Rodi Sengmany, 30, were of Windsor and Edward Seery, 33, of Scarborough were all charged with posssession of marijuna with the purpose of trafficking. Jackie Todd Burkoski, 40, and Kamilla Lenarti, 32, both of Windsor were changed with firearms and drug offences.
