Abbotsford Police made the largest cocaine bust in the department's history after seizing 60 kilograms of the drug on Saturday morning.

The 60 bricks of cocaine likely have a street value between $1.5 to $1.8 million, said Const. Ian MacDonald.

A 24-year-old man is in custody and facing charges of possession for the purpose of trafficking.

Patrol officers made the bust after noticing the suspect loitering in a parking lot with two duffle bags in the 2000 block of Clearbrook Road at 7: 45 a.m. Saturday.

The officers approached the man, noticed the bags were padlocked and had a conversation about the bags, said MacDonald.

"He provides answers that don't make sense, which leads to a search of the bags, and lo and behold we find 60 kilograms of suspected cocaine," he said.

"It's a record amount of coke for us."

The suspect, who hails from out of province but has recently been living in the Fraser Valley, doesn't have a criminal record, said MacDonald.

"He's had some negative police contacts but I wouldn't suggest he's a high-flyer here or out of province."

The APD is continuing to investigate the details of the case.

"At this point we have more questions than answers," he said.

"But the good news is that a large quantity of cocaine has been taken off the streets."

The largest previous APD coke bust involved capturing two men with 40 kilograms of the drug in a berry field near the U.S. border in September 2009.

Randeep Singh Match and Manindervir Singh Virk were each convicted of one count of possession for the purpose of trafficking and sentenced to more than five years behind bars in September 2012.

RBaker@abbotsfordtimes.com

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