The Nanaimo RCMP Municipal Drug Unit put a major dent in the street drug trade Thursday with two arrests.
After an ongoing investigation, police stopped Christine Smithers, 35, in her 2011 Audi on Townsite Road. at about 6 p.m. Inside the car they found 30 grams of crack cocaine and 12 grams of heroin.
A half-hour later, David Pollard, 29, a known associate of Smithers, was arrested at his home in the 500 block of Duke Street.
After obtaining a search warrant for the house, police returned to the home about 1:30 a.m Friday, and found about $20,000 in cash, eight cellphones, 40 grams of heroin, 150 grams of cocaine, drug paraphernalia, liquid steroids, OxyContin, and a stolen shotgun from Calgary hidden in a closet.
Smithers was released Friday after a hearing, but is charged with two counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking and is expected to be in court on Dec. 20.
Pollard, who had four previous orders that prohibited him from being in the possession of firearms, is being held in custody by police.
He faces four new charges for breaching a prohibition order, a Criminal Code offence, as well as two counts of possession with the purpose of trafficking and one count of possession of stolen property.
He went before a provincial court judge Monday and remains in custody.
"This is quite a significant bust and it was good work by our drug unit," said Const. Gary O'Brien, Nanaimo RCMP spokesman. "This will cause a real dent in the local supply of illegal drugs and a flux in the state of drug trafficking in Nanaimo for some time. And getting a shotgun out of the hands of criminals is huge."