“There are people who abuse”: smugglers make up to $10,000 per week reselling alcohol and cannabis in Nunavik

Three years after the biggest crackdown on contraband in Quebec’s Far North, illegal alcohol is still flowing freely in Nunavik. Bottles of strong wine, especially vodka, sell for more than ten times the price paid to the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ).

• Read also – “Every time we drank, he beat me”: the ordeal of a victim of alcohol smuggling in Kuujjuaq

In Nunavik, it is possible to buy beer and wine legally in only three of the 14 villages. The fort is only on sale in bars in Kuujjuaq and Kuujjuarapik. 375 ml bottles of Smirnoff vodka, called “Micky”, paid $15.95 at the SAQ in southern Quebec, sell for $120 to $150.

“There are people who abuse this and then line their pockets with it. It’s not uncommon to see people making $10,000 in profit per week just selling alcohol and then cannabis,” notes investigator-sergeant David Mercier, in Nunavik since 2013.

The police authorities are well aware of the problem. “The drink leaves Montreal and goes north,” explains Captain Patrice Abel, who heads the integrated investigation team of the Nunavik Police Department. “It’s not uncommon to see sellers who sell their bottle of alcohol for $120 and then send $80 south to their supplier,” continues investigator Sergeant Mercier.

An easy and profitable crime

The team of I had unprecedented access to a search of an alleged supplier in Blainville suspected of having sent more than 230 bottles of Smirnoff vodka to different villages in Nunavik.

“If I have to go drop off the box at Air Inuit, they pay me the transportation costs,” he confided, mentioning that he obtained the alcohol directly from the SAQ and that he did not know that what he was doing was illegal. He allegedly pocketed thousands of dollars thanks to this illicit trade.

In general, smugglers get away with fines ranging from $1,000 to $24,000.

In February 2020, the plutonium project allowed the dismantling of a network of alcohol traffickers who allegedly resold 43,000 bottles of alcohol in Nunavik for the sum of $8M. Their trial for fraud, receiving stolen property, conspiracy and trafficking in prohibited substances is due to begin in June 2024 and they risk prison.

“We can question what sanction would be appropriate in the circumstances where we actually see the human and social impacts in the communities in terms of the supply of alcohol here,” underlines Captain Marc-André Proulx, at the head of the SQ smuggling squad.

Limits to the SAQ

To counter alcohol contraband, the state corporation has established purchase limits per customer, per day and per branch. These policies put in place in 2020, after Plutonium, remain easy to circumvent.

“I can’t sell you more than two cases, you’d have to come back 2-3 times, 4 times to buy some,” reveals an employee. A colleague adds that plastic vodka bottles are big sellers in the North.

The SAQ refused to grant an interview, but responded by email that in addition to having a computer system in place which makes it possible to detect irregularities in transactions, it has a procedure which aims to reinforce the vigilance of its employees who have suspicions about the legitimacy of a transaction.

“Has the SAQ really looked into the problem? In the south, we make money, but here, we destroy a people,” criticizes Captain Abel.

Violent crimes

The majority of violent crimes committed in Nunavik are committed under the influence of alcohol. Investigators and patrol officers who work north of 55^e parallel affirm that the fight against crime is inseparable from that against smuggling.

Statistics on crime in Nunavik from 2020 to 2022 show that alcohol is present in 71% to 74% of crimes, including many cases of domestic violence and sexual assault. “Here, there are violent crimes almost all the time, and unfortunately all the time due to the same problem. The scourge that we have had here for years is the sale of illegal alcohol plus everything that is narcotic,” illustrates Captain Patrice Abel, who heads the integrated investigation team created on January 11, 2021 and based in Kuujjuaq.

With 7 murders since the start of the year and a population of 14,050 inhabitants, Nunavik rivals the most violent countries on the planet, including Venezuela and Honduras. The squad’s recruit, Ulaayu Dupuis-Miron, born in Kuujjuaq, also sees the devastation caused by alcohol in his community. “It causes a lot of violence. The world is becoming depressed. The houses are so full that it’s like a way to escape from their problems. All the traumas from generation to generation.”

Since the start of the year, around ten searches have been carried out in different villages in Nunavik, including three this fall. In Salluit, the northernmost village, $150,000 worth of crack cocaine was seized and in Inukjuak, on the west coast, 13 cases of alcohol were confiscated with an estimated value of $30,000. Investigators also removed cannabis, hashish and bottles from the black market in Akulivik. “When we carry out searches and then remove the land, the drink, the drugs, we may have just saved a life. We may have just stopped a woman from being beaten, a child from being attacked,” adds Captain Abel.