Twenty-one loaded handguns, nearly 200 rounds of ammunition and illegal add-ons – including a silencer – were seized from Winnipeg’s Central Park neighbourhood, leading to one man’s arrest, police said.
In addition to those items, $25,000 in cash, 27 grams of cocaine — which would be worth $2,700 if sold — and electronics were seized by police on May 7, Insp. Josh Ewatski with the Winnipeg Police Service’s organized crime division told reporters at a news conference on Monday.
“Investigators also located evidence indicating that a firearm had been discharged from within the suite, and the round had struck a church across the street” from the Cumberland Avenue apartment building, Ewatski added.
Officers discovered the round had struck the church after executing a search warrant by tracing the bullet’s path earlier this month, he said.
“As we’ve learned that many of these firearms are trafficked within the province and across the country either before or after being used.”
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Investigations are ongoing into whether any of the guns confiscated by police were used in other crimes across Canada, the inspector continued.
“We’re attempting to trace them to determine where they’ve come from. It’s possible that they have been used in other offences, but we don’t know that for sure yet,” Ewatski told reporters.
“Once these firearms are used, often we’ll see that they’ve been sold again. We’ve had firearms used in a shooting in Winnipeg and then that same firearm is used in a shooting in B.C., and it’s the same going east as well.”
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Other items seized by police included cash and cocaine, the WPS said.
The 24-year-old man arrested by police is also accused of selling cocaine in several northern Manitoban communities, where the profit margins are high and the competition is slim.
“Drugs come from other areas of the country to Winnipeg and then are shipped to northern communities. And then they sell those drugs at twice the street value that you would normally see within Winnipeg,” Ewatski said.
The accused Winnipeg man is facing 77 firearm and drug trafficking-related charges, the inspector added.
His firearm charges include 21 counts of possession of a prohibited firearm, 22 counts of careless storage of a firearm, and one count of possession for the purpose of weapon trafficking, the WPS said.
So far in 2026, six gun-related homicides have been reported in Winnipeg, according to the inspector. He also said the city has seen 42 shootings, 13 of which involved someone being shot.
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