A shipping business operating in Winnipeg as a front for drug trafficking, with cocaine and cash sent through the mail.
A man sentenced to 16 years for trafficking fentanyl not long after getting out of prison for manslaughter.
A university student “fall guy” caught with more than $1 million in cocaine in his vehicle.
That’s only three of 33 people implicated in what police on Wednesday called the biggest drug bust in Manitoba’s history.
Court documents and sentencing hearings since last fall, reviewed by CBC News on Thursday, shed light on how police homed in on nearly three dozen people charged as part of the interprovincial investigation. Police seized more than $37.2 million worth of cocaine, meth and fentanyl in Project Puma, which spanned two years.
It’s still unclear how the people are connected, but Winnipeg police say the bust involved associates of the Hells Angels, Wolfpack Alliance or Mexican cartel.
Insp. Josh Ewatski speaks at the news conference, where police announced what they say is the largest drug bust in Manitoba history. (Adam Yadaoui/Radio-Canada)
Thomas Barnecki, 45, had been known to police for about 20 years — dating back to a 2008 conviction for trafficking — when he was sentenced for crimes associated with Project Puma last fall.
“Obviously, you’re aware that these sentences go up, not down,” provincial court Judge Dale C. Schille told Barnecki at his November sentencing.
“Kind of astounded that you would stay in this line of work; you’re not exactly flying under the radar anymore.”
Barnecki’s past includes a 2012 arrest and 6½ year sentence associated with another long-term trafficking investigation, dubbed Project Flatlined, involving the Hells Angels and Redline Support Crew.
That bust was high profile enough for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to mention Barnecki. They called Barnecki, who was 31 at the time, a Redline associate and “street boss.”
He was convicted again in 2019 for trafficking and weapons offences and sentenced to five years, court documents show.
After serving his time, Barnecki told Judge Schille he strung together a few good years on parole before he fell back into trafficking.
Court heard he ran a shipping business on Henderson Highway with his brother, Richard Barnecki, who was also arrested in Project Puma.
Federal Crown attorney Stephen Sisson said that shop operated as a front for bringing in one-to-five kilogram packages of cocaine and money through the mail, mostly to and from suppliers in B.C. via Purolator, which is owned by Canada Post. The cocaine was then distributed to local traffickers.
The police began surveilling Thomas Barnecki, his phone, vehicle, an apartment stash suite and the front business in the summer of 2024.
Over the ensuing months, investigators observed Barnecki and an associate bring in multiple multi-kilogram shipments, court heard.
He was arrested on Jan. 8, 2025, after police went into his stash suite and found two kilos of cocaine, four handguns and ammunition.
A Purolator sign is seen in the window of a business on Henderson Highway in Winnipeg that was believed to be operating as a front for bringing in packages of cocaine and money. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)
Investigators also found a drone and drugs in the stash suite. They linked that find to an inmate, suggesting some of the cocaine was destined for Stony Mountain prison, court heard.
Barnecki pleaded guilty in November to three offences, including possessing cocaine for the purposes of trafficking, and was sentenced to 10 years.
He got another year added on for possessing weapons contrary to a previous court order and another five years, to be served concurrently, for illegally possessing four handguns. Barnecki was banned from owning weapons ever again.
“It’s time for me to stay away from those certain people in my life.… I made a stupid decision, I know that,” Barnecki told the judge. “My wife left me. I lost everything.”
Another person nabbed by Project Puma investigators was sentenced a couple of months ago.
‘Massive’ quantities of fentanyl, meth
RCMP in Spruce Grove, Alta., started looking into reports of a drug phone line being used to sell drugs in Edmonton and the surrounding area in the summer of 2024.
That led them to Chelsea Mageau, 35, of Edmonton. She sold a kilo of meth to undercover officers in Alberta three times between August 2024 and February 2025, when Mageau and Clinton Netemegesic were arrested, prosecutors alleged during Netemegesic’s Winnipeg sentencing this March.
Police tracked Mageau from Edmonton to Calgary and then to Winnipeg on Feb. 18 last year, court heard.
Investigators watched as “massive” quantities of fentanyl and meth — five kilograms of the former, 60 kilos of the latter in a hockey bag — changed hands from Mageau to Netemegesic and another man in a hotel parking lot in Headingley, Man., Crown attorney Sisson said.
That amounted to 600 points — a street measurement — of meth and 50,000 points of fentanyl, with a street value in the millions, Sisson said. An analysis found the fentanyl also contained heroin, ketamine and a benzodiazepine.
Netemegesic was sentenced to 16 years for trafficking fentanyl, 12 years for cocaine to be served at the same time, and issued a 10-year weapons ban.
Court heard at the sentencing Netemegesic had recently completed a sentence for manslaughter associated with the death of a man in 2016 when he became involved in the Project Puma trafficking offences.
‘Common route’ for drugs
A visit to a commercial trucking facility in Winnipeg last September made a university student of particular interest to police.
Police put tracking devices on Tongun Tongun’s Chevrolet Cruise and tapped his cellphone. They monitored his movement between several suspected stash houses around the city.
Tongan visited a local commercial trucking company office on Sept. 9. That was something the student, who was 23 at the time, had no legitimate reason to be doing, court heard.
Investigators surmised he was there to ship drugs because commercial trucking is a “common route” used to bring large amounts of drugs into Winnipeg, Crown prosecutor Hugh Crawley said.
The next day, police arrested Tongun and a co-accused. Tongun’s vehicle had 50 kilograms of cocaine in it.
“He comes before the court looking a lot like the fall guy,” Crawley said. “He’s taken the fall because he was holding the bag, but holding that bag in and of itself is a very serious crime when we’re talking about this quantity.”
That quantity is worth about $1.1 million on the street, Crawley said.
“Wow … wow,” provincial court Judge Catherine Hembrof remarked.
“Unlike so many people I see in court, he had so many options.”
Hembrof sentenced Tongun to eight years for trafficking cocaine and issued a 10-year weapons ban.
He was a second-year science student at the University of Manitoba with aspirations of becoming a pharmacist. Tongun apologized in court and said he hoped to follow that path when released from prison.
“This is an absolutely heartbreaking sentencing,” Hembrof said.
“I do hope that this is a turning point for you. You’re much better than this. Make the most of your time in custody and make better decisions going forward.”
