Police, Air Inuit crack down on bootleg shipments

By JANE GEORGE

IQALUIT — A former Air Inuit airline ticket agent in Kuujjuaq who was fired for sending shipments of unauthorized booze to other Nunavik communities is furious over her dismissal.

But Air Inuit and the Kativik Regional Police Force say it’s necessary to get tough if they’re going to cut down on bootlegging and drug trafficking in Nunavik.

Gaétan Boudreau, the operations manager for Air Inuit in Kuujjuaq, told Nunatsiaq News that unless a police warrant is issued, airline employees can’t legally open any cargo suspected of containing booze or drugs.

But he said the airline won’t put up with any bootlegging or trafficking activities among its workers.

“The best we can do is to tell our employees that if we find out they’re involved, we’ll fire them,” Boudreau said. “It’s a direct stand.”

On June 15, ticket agent Maria Abdelmalik was fired after a police investigation linked her to bootlegging in Kangiqsualujjuaq.

Police and other Air Inuit employees had reportedly seen her sending boxes, through checked baggage, “for persons that are not passengers waiting at destination.”

These shipments are against the airline’s policy and also violated local by-laws in Kangiqsualujjuaq that control the amount of alcohol coming into the community.

“Even though you knew, very well, the Air Inuit policy on unauthorized and clandestine shipments, you still continued to send shipments through baggage on our flights,” said Jean Dupuis, the director of Nunavik operations for Air Inuit, in a July 7 letter that terminated Abdelmalik’s employment with the airline.

Abdemalik, who had worked for First Air and Air Inuit for several years, feels that she has been unjustly fired.

She doesn’t deny that on occasion she sent packagesto friends, but she said these were intended as gifts and, even if they did contain alcohol, and that she didn’t realize it was prohibited as cargo.

She said that other Air Inuit employees were guilty of much more severe offenses.

“I don’t understand why I’m the first to be fired over these allegations,” Abdemalik said in an official complaint that she filed with Human Resources Development Canada after her firing.

In her deposition, she said she had been a prompt and helpful employee, working overtime and during emergencies, such as last year’s avalanche in Kangiqsualujjuaq.

She maintained that, unlike other employees, she never came to work late or in an intoxicated state. She said other employees have criminal records and are drug and alcohol users.

“I’m none of the above and I was fired,” she said.

Police had investigated Abdelmalik’s activities and reportedly obtained at least one statement implicating the ticket agent in bootlegging, but no charges were ever laid against her and she was eventually dropped from the official investigation.

But Air Inuit management maintain that Abdemalik’s firing was justified because her name came up so often as a “provider for bootlegging activities.”

Police told Air Inuit that Abdelmalik had also been “involved in a dispute over that fact that she was not being paid for a liquor shipment that was broken in transit and harrassing different people in the village.”

Abdelmalik, who has since found employment with a major Florida cruise line, has not yet dropped her complaint against Air Inuit, and she’s still very angry because she feels she was singled out as a guilty party by her former employers.

“It was just convenient for them to get rid of me without a word, just by letter,” Abdelmalik said. “It hurts me still. I would take it back one day again, my job. This whole thing disgusts me and is a big disappointment in our system.”

But police are determined to limit the amount of unauthorized booze and drugs coming into Nunavik, all of which comes in by air.

“It’s a problem,” said Brian Jones, the chief of the Kativik Regional Police chief . “And it’s a big one.”

But they’re beginning to make some inroads. Last year police in Nunavik seized countless cases of booze and nearly eight kilos of hashish, all travelling by air into the region.

Over the Christmas holidays police intercepted yet another shipment of drugs and booze.

Jones said that it’s not unusual for people to start helping out bootleggers as “a favour.”

“You do it out of kindness,” he said.

But Jones said these acts of kindness often begin to involve money or even “gifts” of booze or drugs.

Jones said some of those involved in illegal activities realize that what they’re doing is against the law, but they never expect to get caught.

To avoid any potential problems, police say air passengers and employees should steer clear of carrying any packages for third parties.

Recently an Air Inuit pilot was handed a present and asked to pass it on to someone in a neighbouring community.

Uneasy at this request, the pilot opened up the package and discovered eight grams of hash stashed inside.

“You have to be very careful,” was Jones’ final word.

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