More than 100 people are in police custody after a series of pre-dawn raids described as the biggest takedown in Ontario history.

About 1,000 police officers executed more than 100 search warrants during the bust of "unprecedented scale," Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair said this morning.

Police from across the province, including Ontario Provincial Police, burst into apartment buildings and homes as early as 5 a.m. in an effort to dismantle both high and low-level operatives of various criminal organizations.

"We have achieved the purpose that we set out to do today," Blair said.

Police continued to make arrests and seize property throughout the morning.

Project Fusion, as police are calling today's takedown began last year and focused on crimes dating back to 2003, Chief Bill Blair told a news conference at police headquarters today.

The investigation focused on two street gangs, MNE (Markham Road/Eglinton Avenue East) and the 400 Crew (400 McCowan Rd.) located in southeast Toronto, Blair said.

"But there is an overarching criminal enterprise that supplies weapons and drugs to the street gangs." Blair said they don't have a name but "they have been extremely well organized and sophisticated in their operation."

One hundred homes and 61 vehicles around the GTA were the targets of search warrants.

Police arrested 125 people. Some face weapons trafficking and criminal organization charges but there were also those facing less serious offences and they were released from custody. Prosecutors will try to detain the accused who face the most serious charges. No names have been released. "This is the culmination of a complex and obviously successful organized crime investigation."

Undercover police and Emergency Task Force officers toting battering rams and assault rifles took part in the operation.

Richard Jauvin was startled out of bed just after 5 a.m., awakened by a loud boom coming from outside.

At first he thought someone was breaking into his car. "I heard people yelling, 'Police!'" Jauvin said, "and then I knew exactly what was happening."

Jauvin said he ran to the window of his Scarborough bungalow and saw about nine SWAT team officers storming into the house next door, rifles in hand.

Police used a battering ram to break through the door.

"It was crazy," he said.

Jauvin shook his wife Tina awake, after watching as his 16-year-old neighbour was led away by police.

An 11-year-old girl, who also lives in the one-storey house on Sedgemount Rd,, near Markham Rd. and Eglinton Ave., is now with her grandmother, a police source said.

Mattresses in the home were flipped up and police scoured the premises.

Tina, a 22-year resident of the quiet street, said she and her husband have seen many expensive cars pulling up into their neighbour's driveway over the three summers the family has lived there.

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Police seized a big-screen TV from the raided residence, loading it into a van this morning several hours after the raid.

-with files from Betsy Powell

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