ST. STEPHEN, New Brunswick – Canadian police swooped down on 22 suspected drug dealers across the province and seized Ecstasy, marijuana, crystal methamphetamine and the prescription drug OxyContin popular among American drug addicts, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials said during a press conference Tuesday.

Dubbed “Operation Jackpot,” police would not characterize the suspects arrested Tuesday as being part of organized crime, but did say they were an organized group that was involved in moving the drugs across the province and into Maine.

“I would like to report that we’ve just concluded the first phase of a criminal investigation into an organized group from the Miramichi, Moncton and the Charlotte County areas who were operating marijuana groves as well as trafficking in marijuana, Ecstasy, crystal methamphetamine and OxyContin within the province of New Brunswick and exporting OxyContin to the state of Maine,” RCMP Staff Sgt. Ed MacEachern said.

One OxyContin pill, depending on its strength, sells for as mush as $80 American on the street, according to police.

Police in Saint John, Miramichi, Moncton and St. Stephen worked together. The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency assisted.

Although marijuana and OxyContin were sold throughout the Maritimes, most of the OxyContin went to addicts in St. Stephen or was smuggled out of the country, the staff sergeant said.

OxyContin and its sister drug, Dilaudid, both legal prescription drugs, are known as Hillbilly Heroin on the street.

The staff sergeant said that so far six residences, in the St. Stephen-Charlotte County area and one St. Stephen-Charlotte County business were searched.

Four men were arrested in St. Stephen and 18 were arrested in Miramichi. Under Canadian law the men’s names will not be released until the they appear in court. He said the maximum penalty for trafficking is life in prison.

“This investigation and the arrest and the seizures which have been made today represents the most significant impact that law enforcement has had on the problem to date,” MacEachern said. “During the life of this investigation, police have been able to seize OxyContin in numbers ranging from 40 units to 300 units per seizure in Charlotte County, Moncton and in the state of Maine.”

Leon C. Ives, resident agent in charge of the Department of Homeland Securities’ ICE in Houlton, attended the press conference and said it was easier to buy prescription drugs in Canada. “It is easier to purchase them illegally over here [in Canada] and then smuggle them into the country than to get a prescription in the U.S.,” he said. He said the investigations on the northern border had zeroed in on Canadian OxyContin. “They typically are stamped with CDN on the back for Canadian,” he said.

In addition to drugs, a significant amount of U.S. cash and firearms also was seized.

The staff sergeant said he believes the raids will make a dent in the supply of drugs to the States. “We’ve recognized a problem of cross-border drug trafficking here for quite some time now, and cooperation between various branches within the RCMP and with our federal law enforcement partners in the United States has resulted in some arrests, and there will definitely be charges later down the road, and we definitely will have made a difference in the cross-border trafficking situation,” he said.

MacEachern declined to release the details of the investigation. He did say that U.S. police agencies provided information and intelligence, “and cooperation in terms of being able to determine the level and extent of trafficking across the border as they see it,” he said.

The staff sergeant said there would be more raids.