Six Prohibited Weapons, Sixty Grams of Cocaine and Thirteen Thousand Dollars Off Two Streets in Sept-Îles: the Mixed Squad Arrests Four in What the Sûreté du Québec Calls an Organized Crime File, Then Releases Every One of Them (August 28, 2026)
SEPT-ÎLES — Six prohibited weapons is the number to hold onto. Sixty grams of cocaine is a modest quantity and $13,000 is a modest amount of money, but six weapons that a person is not permitted to own under any circumstance, taken out of two houses on the same day, is a different kind of finding. Le Nord-Côtier published the file at 10:39 a.m. on Friday, August 28, 2026, and the Sûreté du Québec’s framing of it is unambiguous: drug trafficking linked to organized crime.
Three searches were carried out on Thursday, August 27 by investigators from the Équipe mixte de Sept-Îles, assisted by the major crimes squad and Sept-Rivières patrol officers. The residences are on rue Comeau and rue Régnault. A vehicle was also seized. Four people were arrested — three men aged 23, 24 and 44, and a woman aged 37 — and every one of them was released for the continuation of judicial proceedings.
What the Sûreté du Québec Has Put on the Record Through Le Nord-Côtier and Ma Côte-Nord
- The framing: an investigation into drug trafficking linked to organized crime — “trafic de stupéfiants lié au crime organisé” — in Sept-Îles. No group is named.
- The squad: the Équipe mixte de Sept-Îles, assisted by the Équipe des enquêtes sur les crimes majeurs and by Sept-Rivières patrol officers.
- The searches: three, all carried out Thursday, August 27, 2026.
- The addresses: residences on rue Comeau and rue Régnault. No civic numbers released.
- Also seized: one vehicle.
- Seized: more than $13,000; 60 grams of cocaine; six prohibited weapons. The weapons are not described in any way — not type, not whether any were firearms, not whether any were loaded.
- Arrested: three men aged 23, 24 and 44, and a woman aged 37.
- Custody: all four released for the continuation of judicial proceedings. Nobody was held.
- Anticipated charges: trafficking, and possession of substances for the purpose of trafficking. None have been laid.
- What is absent: no name, no occurrence number, no communiqué, no officer quoted, no court date, no valuation, and no criminal organization.
Six Weapons, and Not One of Them Described
“Six armes prohibées” is a legal category, not a description. It covers everything from a prohibited firearm to a device that has no lawful purpose in Canada at all, and the difference between those matters enormously to how this file should be read. Six of them in one operation is the single most serious element the Sûreté du Québec has disclosed, and it is also the element about which it has disclosed the least.
The comparison worth making is with the drugs. Sixty grams of cocaine is a quantity that would ordinarily produce a short police notice and nothing more. It is not a wholesale position and it does not, by itself, indicate a network. The weapons are what pull this file up into serious territory, and the force has given the public nothing to assess them by.
Four People Arrested, Four People Released
Nobody was held. In a file the Sûreté du Québec itself describes as tied to organized crime, four people were arrested on Thursday and all four were out again pending the continuation of proceedings, with charges only anticipated rather than laid.
That is not necessarily unusual and it should not be read as a judgment on the strength of the evidence. Release for later proceedings is common in Quebec where the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales has yet to authorize charges, and the prosecutor rather than the police makes that call. But it does mean that as of publication there is no charge sheet, no court date and no accused whose name is on a public record — and no way for anyone to follow the file forward.
The Region This Lands In
Sept-Îles sits in a region that has been under sustained enforcement pressure. On August 24, 2026, Le Soleil published on-the-record remarks from Ghislain Cosette, the Sûreté du Québec’s head of organized crime for eastern Quebec, describing a drug conflict on the Côte-Nord in which the Hells Angels originally controlled the territory and the arrival of the Blood Family Mafia contested that business model, driving an escalation in arsons, home invasions and firearm discharges. Cosette said the North Savage Gang subsequently tried to take the BFM’s place in the region.
In the same reporting, the SQ put figures to it: a mixed squad formed in February 2024 from the Sûreté du Québec, the RCMP and the Service de police de Uashat mak Mani-Utenam has produced 103 investigation files, more than 130 searches and more than 121 arrests. Thursday’s three searches and four arrests belong to that enforcement effort by unit and by geography.
They do not belong to any of those organizations, and nothing above should be read as saying they do. The Sûreté du Québec has attached no group to rue Comeau, to rue Régnault, or to any of the four people arrested. It said “organized crime” and it stopped there. So does this briefing.
Équipe Mixte de Sept-Îles — Rue Comeau and Rue Régnault
Primary Wire Sources
- Le Nord-Côtier: “Crime organisé : saisie de cocaïne et d’armes à Sept-Îles” — by Emy-Jane Déry, published 10:39 AM, 28 août 2026. Date and time confirmed on the article page itself. Every quantity, age, street and unit above is drawn from this report.
- Ma Côte-Nord (Arsenal Media): “Quatre arrestations lors de trois perquisitions hier de l’équipe mixte SQ-SPUM de Sept-Îles” — published 28 août 2026 at 10:33, carrying the same file.
- No Sûreté du Québec communiqué has been issued on this operation. The force’s communiqués index carried only the Dorval vehicle-export release for August 28; the Sept-Îles details went to media directly. Where no release exists, the outlets are the primary source, and the SQ newsroom will be re-checked on a later run so any release can be folded in.
- The regional background — Ghislain Cosette’s remarks on the Côte-Nord drug conflict, the February 2024 mixed squad and the 121-arrest figure — comes from Le Soleil reporting by Victoria Baril published August 24, 2026, covered separately by Gangland Files. It is context for the region and is not an attribution of this file to any organization.
- No criminal organization has been named by the Sûreté du Québec in connection with these searches or these four arrests, and none is named in this briefing.