For the second time in just a few weeks, York Regional Police are announcing the successful takedown of a large-scale drug production and trafficking ring in the Toronto area.

Working with everyone from Canada Border Services Agency to Toronto Police Services, YRP said during a press conference on Thursday that it had seized a total of $45 million worth of illegal drugs across two separate organized crime busts.

The first bust is the result of a more than one-year-long investigation dubbed Project Moon. That project is said to have spanned the entirety of Southern Ontario and involved "Asian organized crime and street gangs," as well as members of the Parkdale Crips.

.@YRP day Projects Zen and Moon have no link to Project Sindacato from a few weeks ago. These operations have links to Asian organized crime based around GTA.

— Mark Carcasole (@MarkCarcGlobal) August 8, 2019

"This entire synthetic drug network was primarily funded through the illicit cultivation and sale of cannabis," said Mike Slack, York Regional Police superintendent of Organized Crime and Intelligence, of Project Moon during the press conference.

"The criminals associated to this project expertly abused the Health Canada medical licensing system," he continued. "This included everything from fraudulently obtaining licences, illegally leasing licences and pooling licences."

Good morning from @YRP Police announcing the results of big drug/crime ring busts. About $40 million in drugs seized. pic.twitter.com/liRY7Jap0b

— Meagan Fitzpatrick (@fitzpatrick_m) August 8, 2019

Slack said during Thursday's conference that the group had been using the proceeds of their black market marijuana sales to process and sell other drugs, such as MDMA and methamphetamine.

Police found 15,300 MDMA pills, 23 kilograms of meth, 400 Viagara pills, nine pounds of psilocybin mushrooms, 560 kilograms of cannabis, $220,000 in cash and at least four firearms in a series of raids across Southern Ontario.

Forty-two people have been charged with 118 criminal offences as a result of Project Moon, according to police. 

We are at @YRP HQ as police show off a wall of drugs and guns as part of two organized crime investigations that pulled in a Tec-9 machine gun with a silencer, cannabis, fentanyl, cocaine, hash, meth, GHB, magic mushrooms and more pic.twitter.com/LLdXSxZVak

— NEWSTALK1010 (@NEWSTALK1010) August 8, 2019

The second investigation, Project Zen, resulted in 38 charges for eight people who were said to have been involved in moving large amounts of fentanyl in and around Vaughan.

York Regional Police found more than five kilograms of fentanyl after executing a series of search warrants in the area, as well as 19 kilograms of cocaine, 16.5 kilograms of meth, 56 kilograms of cannabis, $270,000 in cash and five handguns.

Almost everything seized was displayed during today's press conference in York Region, with the exception of the fentanyl.

Slack said that the deadly opioid was too dangerous to display, noting that fentanyl-related overdoses are on the rise in York Region... and everywhere else in Canada.