Latest news with #Leuprecht
New York Post
31-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
After dramatic post-election drop, border crossings level off
Illegal crossings at the Canadian border have stabilized over the past three months, new data show. Border crossings were up slightly in April, with 4,835 people caught trying to sneak into the US compared to 4,477 in March according to US Customs and Border Protection data. The current figures are a fraction of the illegal entries from the often-overlooked northern border during the Biden administration, when 15,207 people were caught crossing illegally in October and, in August, at the peak — 18,944. 4 A mother and son from Turkey walk through a creek as they try to cross the border between Quebec and New York State. Getty Images Of the 4,835 nabbed at the border in April, 1,580 were Canadian citizens, followed by 609 Indian nationals, 380 Chinese and 365 Mexicans, data show. Christian Leuprecht, a Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University, said the numbers are the result of years of policies — such as Canada loosening visa requirements for Indian students, leading to droves coming with no intention to study, but to make an escape south. 'There'll always be people trying to get into the US,' Leuprecht told The Post. 'And the more the US tries to clamp down on the southern border, inherently there'll be people with resources — because it takes more resources to get to Canada — that will try to go there to make it into the US.' 4 Leuprecht expects the numbers to keep dropping in the future. Queens University Crossings typically plateau in cooler weather months because fewer migrants attempt the treacherous, sometimes fatal journey on foot, and pick up in warmer weather. But Leuprecht expects the number of illegal crossings to decline further, as the US and Canada ramp up a number of joint measures announced to go after transnational organized crime organizations smuggling migrants, rather than just the migrants themselves. 4 The northern border is the largest land border in the world, spanning more than 5,500 miles of wilderness REUTERS 4 The Canada-US border is largely unguarded territory outside of official border-crossing points. AP Border Patrol Assistant Commissioner Hilton Beckham told The Post that the Trump administration's dedication to the crisis is seeing results. 'For the first time in years, we've been able to redeploy agents from processing centers back to the field, patrolling the land and catching illegal aliens we simply couldn't get to before,' he said. 'Bottom line: under President Trump's leadership, illegal crossings have dropped dramatically at both the northern and southern borders.'
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump complains about Canada — but new data shows spike in U.S. drugs and guns coming north
President Donald Trump claims he's targeting Canada with punishing tariffs on all our goods because he's concerned about the country's supposedly lax approach to fentanyl and migrants. But new data from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) shows Canada has a reason to worry about what's pouring in from the U.S. There's been an influx of illegal American drugs and guns, which experts and law enforcement say are fuelling crime, death and addiction on this side of the border, too. CBSA is seizing many more drugs, prohibited weapons and firearms than they were just two years ago, according to figures compiled by the border agency and shared with CBC News. In fact, when looking at weight alone, Canadian officials seized more illegal drugs coming from the U.S. last year than what the Americans captured on their side of the 49th parallel. "We live next door to the largest weapons market in the world, the largest drug market in the world. There are inherent — and significant — spillover effects," said Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and an expert on border security. In almost every category measured by CBSA, the number of illegal goods captured coming into this country is on the upswing. Notably, there's been an eye-popping increase in Canada-bound drugs seized by border officials. In 2022, for example, CBSA nabbed 3.8 million grams of drugs coming in from the U.S. — last year that figure climbed to 8.3 million grams. That's a 118 per cent increase in two years' time. CBSA measures cannabis, hashish, cocaine and crack, heroin, some opioids (like opium, methadone and morphine) and drug-related precursor chemicals seized in grams. A recent Toronto drug bust shows exactly what Canada is grappling with: police captured 835 kilograms of cocaine in January, product they say was likely manufactured by a Mexican cartel and then moved into Canada through the U.S. Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw speaks to media behind a wall of seized drugs during a press conference announcing the seizure of 835 kilograms of cocaine, in Toronto on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (Cole Burston/The Canadian Press) There's also a spike in the number of drug "dosages" captured by CBSA. In 2022, there were 112,576 dosages seized by border officials. That number more than tripled to 469,996 dosages in 2024, according to CBSA figures. CBSA measures some opioids and other drugs and drug-related chemicals in dosages. Leuprecht said the spike in drugs seized in Canada is likely driven, at least in part, by shifting production methods. During the pandemic and early post-pandemic years, the transnational crime syndicates behind drug production moved some of their work from Mexico to the U.S. to get around tight COVID-related border measures, Leuprecht said. It was then easier to move those drugs from the U.S. into Canada. An estimated 400,000 people cross the border every day, some with little scrutiny, and there's a constant flow of vehicles that could shepherd the drugs into Canada, he said. "Just like North American integration has worked quite well for the auto sector, agriculture and other industries, it's worked really well for transnational organized crime and the pandemic was sort of an accelerant to that integration," he said in an interview. Leuprecht said the federal government's new $1.3-billion border security package was pitched as way to assuage Trump's concerns about drugs and migrants and get him to back off his tariff threat. "But the real benefit is for the public safety of Canadians in terms of actually having the resources we need to interdict illicit firearms, in particular, and a host of other drugs coming north," he said. Public safety bureaucrats have long lobbied for more money for the border but were largely ignored, Leuprecht said. "It wasn't a priority — until now," he said. Canada's fentanyl czar Kevin Brosseau toured the Canada Border Services Agency Lansdowne port of entry on his first full day in the role. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press) There's one area where there has been a decrease in seizures — the amount of fentanyl coming from the U.S. into Canada and intercepted by CBSA dropped from 1,070 grams two years ago to 532 grams in 2024. But the amount of fentanyl intercepted from non-U.S. countries at the Canadian border jumped from 2,812 grams to 4,403 grams in that same period. With U.S. officials reporting 19,500 grams of fentanyl seized at the northern border last year, Canada is still not a significant source of the drug entering the U.S. Less than one per cent of all fentanyl seized in the U.S. comes from Canada, according to Canadian government data. Former RCMP deputy commissioner Kevin Brosseau was appointed as Canada's fentanyl czar on Tuesday. He is tasked with curbing fentanyl production and distribution of that deadly drug as part of Canada's efforts to convince Trump it is taking action. "Getting the number to zero is our goal and should be our goal. If it is one pound or 10 pounds, we all know the possibility of deaths that could represent. This is a public safety and security crisis. We should be focused on eliminating the scourge of fentanyl in this country and the United States," he said. CBSA and CPB data consulted by CBC News shows more drugs by weight were seized entering Canada than the United States on the 49th parallel last year. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press) The U.S. is a more significant purveyor of drugs that can be less deadly but still cause huge societal problems. When looking at simply the weight of drugs captured, comparing CBSA and U.S. Customs and Protection (CBP) data reveals there was actually a greater quantity seized on the Canadian side of the 49th parallel last year than what was captured by American officials along their northern border. The CBP seized 5,260 kilograms of drugs at the northern border in 2024 — a lot of it was cannabis — compared to the 8,300 kilograms Canadian officials intercepted coming from the U.S. in the same year, according to a CBC News review of CBP and CBSA data. Canada seizes a lot of cannabis too but it's what CBSA calls "other drugs," including methamphetamine and precursor chemicals to make drugs like MDMA (ecstasy), that represent the single biggest category of drugs taken away, according to the border agency. There's been a notable decline in the weight of southbound drugs the Americans have nabbed over the last two years. The 5,260 kilograms seized last year is down from 27,260 kilograms in 2022 and 25,000 kilograms in 2023. Firearms seizures spike The illegal firearms picture is also troubling, police say. In 2022, CBSA seized 581 firearms coming into Canada from the U.S. — that figure jumped to 839 last year, according to the agency's data. The data reveals the U.S. is the primary concern when it comes to illegal firearms because, by comparison, just 93 were found by officials coming from other countries last year. Canadian police have long warned that illegal U.S. firearms are driving gun-related crime in this country. In 2024 in Toronto alone, the Toronto Police Service (TPS) seized 717 crime guns and a stunning 88 per cent of those were sourced to the U.S., according to TPS data shared with CBC News. Of those firearms, 515 were handguns and 91 per cent of those were traced to the U.S. Since 2018, anywhere from 70 to 88 per cent of guns seized by TPS have been traced to the U.S., a spokesperson for the police force said. Firearms, illicit drugs and cash that were seized last week are displayed before a news conference at RCMP headquarters, in Surrey, B.C., last October. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press) Pressed to answer for Canada's role in the fentanyl trade in an interview with an American podcaster earlier this year, former prime minister Stephen Harper pushed back on the framing of Canada as a big cause of the U.S. drug crisis. "There is no migrant flow happening from Canada to the United States of any significant numbers," Harper said. "And I'm going to tell you right now, drugs, guns, crime — most of those things flow north, not south."
CBC
13-02-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Trump complains about Canada — but new data shows spike in U.S. drugs and guns coming north
President Donald Trump claims he's targeting Canada with punishing tariffs on all our goods because he's concerned about the country's supposedly lax approach to fentanyl and migrants. But new data from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) shows Canada has a reason to worry about what's pouring in from the U.S. There's been an influx of illegal American drugs and guns, which experts and law enforcement say are fuelling crime, death and addiction on this side of the border, too. CBSA is seizing many more drugs, prohibited weapons and firearms than they were just two years ago, according to figures compiled by the border agency and shared with CBC News. In fact, when looking at weight alone, Canadian officials seized more illegal drugs coming from the U.S. last year than what the Americans captured on their side of the 49th parallel. "We live next door to the largest weapons market in the world, the largest drug market in the world. There are inherent — and significant — spillover effects," said Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and an expert on border security. In almost every category measured by CBSA, the number of illegal goods captured coming into this country is on the upswing. Notably, there's been an eye-popping increase in Canada-bound drugs seized by border officials. In 2022, for example, CBSA nabbed 3.8 million grams of drugs coming in from the U.S. — last year that figure climbed to 8.3 million grams. That's a 118 per cent increase in two years' time. CBSA measures cannabis, hashish, cocaine and crack, heroin, some opioids (like opium, methadone and morphine) and drug-related precursor chemicals seized in grams. A recent Toronto drug bust shows exactly what Canada is grappling with: police captured 835 kilograms of cocaine in January, product they say was likely manufactured by a Mexican cartel and then moved into Canada through the U.S. There's also a spike in the number of drug "dosages" captured by CBSA. In 2022, there were 112,576 dosages seized by border officials. That number more than tripled to 469,996 dosages in 2024, according to CBSA figures. CBSA measures some opioids and other drugs and drug-related chemicals in dosages. Leuprecht said the spike in drugs seized in Canada is likely driven, at least in part, by shifting production methods. During the pandemic and early post-pandemic years, the transnational crime syndicates behind drug production moved some of their work from Mexico to the U.S. to get around tight COVID-related border measures, Leuprecht said. It was then easier to move those drugs from the U.S. into Canada. An estimated 400,000 people cross the border every day, some with little scrutiny, and there's a constant flow of vehicles that could shepherd the drugs into Canada, he said. "Just like North American integration has worked quite well for the auto sector, agriculture and other industries, it's worked really well for transnational organized crime and the pandemic was sort of an accelerant to that integration," he said in an interview. Leuprecht said the federal government's new $1.3-billion border security package was pitched as way to assuage Trump's concerns about drugs and migrants and get him to back off his tariff threat. "But the real benefit is for the public safety of Canadians in terms of actually having the resources we need to interdict illicit firearms, in particular, and a host of other drugs coming north," he said. Public safety bureaucrats have long lobbied for more money for the border but were largely ignored, Leuprecht said. "It wasn't a priority — until now," he said. There's one area where there has been a decrease in seizures — the amount of fentanyl coming from the U.S. into Canada and intercepted by CBSA dropped from 1,070 grams two years ago to 532 grams in 2024. But the amount of fentanyl intercepted from non-U.S. countries at the Canadian border jumped from 2,812 grams to 4,403 grams in that same period. With U.S. officials reporting 19,500 grams of fentanyl seized at the northern border last year, Canada is still not a significant source of the drug entering the U.S. Less than one per cent of all fentanyl seized in the U.S. comes from Canada, according to Canadian government data. Former RCMP deputy commissioner Kevin Brosseau was appointed as Canada's fentanyl czar on Tuesday. He is tasked with curbing fentanyl production and distribution of that deadly drug as part of Canada's efforts to convince Trump it is taking action. "Getting the number to zero is our goal and should be our goal. If it is one pound or 10 pounds, we all know the possibility of deaths that could represent. This is a public safety and security crisis. We should be focused on eliminating the scourge of fentanyl in this country and the United States," he said. The U.S. is a more significant purveyor of drugs that can be less deadly but still cause huge societal problems. When looking at simply the weight of drugs captured, comparing CBSA and U.S. Customs and Protection (CBP) data reveals there was actually a greater quantity seized on the Canadian side of the 49th parallel last year than what was captured by American officials along their northern border. The CBP seized 5,260 kilograms of drugs at the northern border in 2024 — a lot of it was cannabis — compared to the 8,300 kilograms Canadian officials intercepted coming from the U.S. in the same year, according to a CBC News review of CBP and CBSA data. Canada seizes a lot of cannabis too but it's what CBSA calls "other drugs," including methamphetamine and precursor chemicals to make drugs like MDMA (ecstasy), that represent the single biggest category of drugs taken away, according to the border agency. There's been a notable decline in the weight of southbound drugs the Americans have nabbed over the last two years. The 5,260 kilograms seized last year is down from 27,260 kilograms in 2022 and 25,000 kilograms in 2023. Firearms seizures spike The illegal firearms picture is also troubling, police say. In 2022, CBSA seized 581 firearms coming into Canada from the U.S. — that figure jumped to 839 last year, according to the agency's data. The data reveals the U.S. is the primary concern when it comes to illegal firearms because, by comparison, just 93 were found by officials coming from other countries last year. Canadian police have long warned that illegal U.S. firearms are driving gun-related crime in this country. In 2024 in Toronto alone, the Toronto Police Service (TPS) seized 717 crime guns and a stunning 88 per cent of those were sourced to the U.S., according to TPS data shared with CBC News. Of those firearms, 515 were handguns and 91 per cent of those were traced to the U.S. Since 2018, anywhere from 70 to 88 per cent of guns seized by TPS have been traced to the U.S., a spokesperson for the police force said. Pressed to answer for Canada's role in the fentanyl trade in an interview with an American podcaster earlier this year, former prime minister Stephen Harper pushed back on the framing of Canada as a big cause of the U.S. drug crisis. "There is no migrant flow happening from Canada to the United States of any significant numbers," Harper said. "And I'm going to tell you right now, drugs, guns, crime — most of those things flow north, not south."
CBC
06-02-2025
- Business
- CBC
Want to get rid of fentanyl? Tackle money-laundering first, say experts
As the federal government says it will introduce new measures to fight organized crime in Canada, helping it stave off tariff threats from the U.S., experts say that Canada's money-laundering problem has festered for far too long — and that the issue makes it easier for fentanyl-pushing cartels to gain a foothold in this country. U.S. President Donald Trump has used the fentanyl crisis to justify broad tariffs against Canada, alleging that a massive amount of the drug is entering the U.S. via Canada. Canada makes up just 0.2 per cent of all U.S. border fentanyl seizures, but the country has shifted in recent years from being a consumer and importer of fentanyl to a producer and exporter, according to a January report by financial watchdog FINTRAC. The roughly 100 organized crime groups operating in Canada (including three groups dedicated to supplying fentanyl) are partly drawn to loopholes and lax penalties that allow fentanyl-related money-laundering operations to flourish, according to researchers. "The discussion about fentanyl is closely tied in to money-laundering in two ways," says Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College and Queen's University and author of Dirty Money: Financial Crime in Canada. The profits from fentanyl produced in Canada for the Canadian market are often laundered inside the country through banks, real estate, casinos and other fronts. But these operations are typically connected to a wider network of precursor suppliers and other crime groups based outside of the country, leading to an extensive transnational money-laundering operation associated with the fentanyl produced in Canada. "As a result of the overproduction of fentanyl [in Canada], some of this spills over into the United States," said Leuprecht. He added that organized crime groups choose Canada because it puts them inside of what was, at least before the threat of tariffs, a free-trade zone. "That is not by accident. That is by design because it reduces your risk. It reduces your detection," he said. WATCH | How much fentanyl really gets into the U.S. from Canada?: How much fentanyl is really going to the U.S. from Canada 3 days ago Duration 2:14 Canadian banks in particular are popular because they operate retail branches both in Canada and the U.S., making it easier for criminals to bank on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border using one institution and thereby reducing their chances of detection, according to Leuprecht. A recent crisis at TD Bank, for example, saw the financial institution admitting that its lax anti-money laundering regime allowed fentanyl traffickers to launder $670 million through its American branches. While the U.S. Department of Justice fined the Canadian bank $3 billion US for its role in that scheme, Canadian fines are comparatively smaller — FINTRAC fined TD just $9 million Cdn a few months earlier for violating anti-money laundering compliance rules. As part of the deal between Canada and the U.S., Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Canada would appoint a fentanyl czar, list drug cartels as terrorists, beef up border surveillance and launch a joint strike force to counter organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering. Disrupting a crime group's money-laundering operation would be more debilitating than targeting individual fentanyl operations, said Leuprecht. "The way criminals are moving drugs, producing drugs, how they're laundering their money and the colossal amounts of money involved, it's just not been a priority for the government," he said. That could be changing: the RCMP busted the largest drug "superlab" in Canadian history this past fall, with the federal government later floating a proposal in the fall economic statement that it would boost the AML oversight penalty to at least $20 million per violation and increase fines for criminal offences. It also announced in its 2024 budget that it would amend some legislation in the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. 'Snow-washing' is pervasive, says compliance expert Michael Ecclestone, a compliance leader at the AML Shop in Toronto, advises businesses that are obligated to comply with Canada's anti-money laundering regulations. Noting that there's a particular name for money-laundering in Canada — "snow-washing" — he says the problem is pervasive. "There's almost no limit to how this can be done," Ecclestone said, noting that money can be laundered through smaller businesses like jewelers, gold dealers or securities dealers. Professional money launderers use various tactics to clean money, like fraudulent invoicing and trade arrangements, or moving money back and forth between bank accounts or shell corporations without real assets. When businesses fail to report suspicious activity, the problem festers — and that's why some groups have called for harsher penalties for non-compliance with AML laws. In Canada, "one area constantly called out for a lack of resources and a lack of focus is the amount of prosecution," said Ecclestone. He said it's been a long time since there was a concerted effort to update anti money-laundering legislation and to arm police and investigators with adequate resources to tackle the problem. The focus on fentanyl could provide "a shot in the arm and a jolt to authorities to begin that process of updating, enhancing, making the regime more able to deal with the current levels of money-laundering we're seeing in Canada," he added. "No one trades in fentanyl if they don't think they're going to make money from it."
