Police raids in southern Ontario turn up $2.3M in contraband tobacco; 5 charged

Five people face charges after more than a dozen raids by police across the Greater Toronto Area — including in Mississauga — turned up some $2.3 million in contraband tobacco.

Various electronic devices and $30,000 in Canadian cash were also seized by members of the Ontario Provincial Police Contraband Tobacco Enforcement Team with help from other law enforcement agencies during the course of a 16-month investigation, police said.

Four of the five people charged were arrested in April, police said in a news release on Friday, on the heels of numerous search warrants executed last year and the arrest of one person in November 2024.

OPP said they began their investigation in January 2024 into the alleged trafficking of contraband tobacco, including shisha tobacco and contraband cigarettes, “by a network of individuals based in the GTA.”

Police said they executed 16 search warrants last Oct. 24 in Mississauga, Brantford, Burlington, Vaughan and Scarborough that turned up a total of 19,000 kilograms of contraband tobacco, valued at $2.3 million, as well as a number of electronic devices.

Last November, Ali Mallah, 58, of Toronto, was arrested and charged with trafficking contraband tobacco.

Three earlier search warrants, executed last July 4 in the GTA, led police to the recovery of more than 800 kilograms of shisha tobacco, some 16,000 contraband cigarettes and $30,000 in Canadian currency, investigators said. The tobacco seized in those raids has an estimated street value of more than $90,000.

Four more people were arrested in April, police said.

Charged with trafficking contraband tobacco are:

• Omar Omran, 25, of Scarborough
• Nael Alwarasaneh, 36, of Burlington
• Abdelrahman Hasan, 28, of Brantford
• Saif Hasan, 20, of Brantford

The accused were released from custody and are scheduled to appear again in court on Monday.