Twelve People Were Put in Handcuffs and Eleven Walked Out Again the Same Day: Saskatchewan RCMP Take Four Guns, Two Replicas and Twenty-Eight Grams of Cocaine Off Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation and Charge Sheldon Ahenakew, 57, With Failing to Surrender Firearms He Was Already Ordered to Give Up (September 18, 2026)

AHTAHKAKOOP CREE NATION — The Prince Albert Crime Reduction Team went through three doors on Thursday with an Emergency Response Team behind it, arrested twelve people and released eleven of them without charges. The twelfth is Sheldon Ahenakew, 57, who now faces nine counts. Four of those nine are about guns he was not permitted to have, and two of them say he had been ordered to hand firearms in and did not.

Three Warrants, One Charge Sheet

On Thursday, September 17, 2026, the Prince Albert Crime Reduction Team executed three search warrants under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act at three residences on Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation as part of a drug trafficking investigation. The force does not say which of the three residences produced which item, and does not say whether the twelve arrests were spread across all three addresses or concentrated at one.

What is unambiguous is the arithmetic of who was let go. Twelve people went into custody and eleven came out without charges, which is a release rate the RCMP does not explain. It does not say whether the eleven remain under investigation, whether further charges are anticipated against any of them, or whether they were simply present when the doors went in.

Section 117.01(1), Twice

Of the nine counts, the two that carry the most weight for a reader trying to understand this file are the pair under section 117.01(1). That offence does not arise from being found with a gun in the ordinary way. It arises when a court has already made a prohibition order against a person and that person does not surrender what the order covers. Charged twice, it points at two firearms, or two occasions, that were supposed to have been handed in and were not.

Stack the fail-to-comply-with-a-release-order count on top and the picture the charge sheet draws — though the RCMP never states it in words — is of a man who was already before the courts and already under conditions when these warrants were executed. The force publishes no detail of the underlying order: no issuing court, no date, no file, no expiry, and no statement of what conduct produced it.

Six Objects, Four of Which Can Fire

The inventory is unusually specific by the standards of this beat, and the specificity repays reading closely. Police list one shotgun, two carbines, one sawed-off rifle and two replica pistols. Four of those six are firearms. Two are replicas, which is a legally different thing and which the RCMP was careful to say rather than folding all six into a headline count of “six firearms.” That is a distinction many forces blur, and the Saskatchewan RCMP deserves the credit for not blurring it.

The sawed-off rifle is the item that stands out. A rifle cut down below the statutory barrel or overall length becomes a prohibited firearm by the fact of the modification. The release does not say whether that weapon is the subject of either section 92(1) count, or which firearm grounds the dangerous-purpose count, or whether any of them was loaded.

Twenty-Eight Grams, and a Proceeds Count With No Property in It

The drug quantity is 28 grams of cocaine — an ounce. That is a modest figure to anchor a possession-for-the-purpose count, and the force publishes no street value for it and no description of any packaging, scale or ledger.

It sits awkwardly beside the count of possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000. Something in those three houses was assessed at more than five thousand dollars and alleged to be crime proceeds, and the release does not say what it was. The cash is described only as “an undisclosed sum.” No vehicle, no electronics, no jewellery and no equipment appear in the published inventory. The property that carries the heavier of the two proceeds thresholds is, on the public record, invisible.

Who Was on the Door

For a file that produced one charged accused, the agency list is long. The Prince Albert Crime Reduction Team led, assisted by the Saskatchewan RCMP Emergency Response Team, the Critical Incident Program, the Meadow Lake Crime Reduction Team, Ahtahkakoop RCMP and the Prince Albert Police Service Crime Reduction Team. An ERT and a Critical Incident Program deployment across three simultaneous residential warrants is a substantial commitment of provincial resources. The release does not explain what drove that threat assessment.

What Is Still Not Reported

No RCMP file number. No time of day for any of the three warrants and no addresses within the community. No street value for the cocaine and no amount for the cash. No identification of the property said to exceed $5,000. No statement of whether any firearm was loaded, or which firearm attaches to which count. No particulars of the prohibition order or the release order. No custody or bail outcome from the September 18 appearance. No explanation for the eleven releases. No officer quoted by name. And no gang, criminal organization or outlaw motorcycle club is named anywhere in the release.

The RCMP says the investigation is ongoing and further charges are possible. Sheldon Ahenakew was remanded and appeared in Prince Albert court on September 18, 2026. These allegations have not been tested in court, and he is presumed innocent.