Vehicles enter the United States from Canada. Police arrested Jordan Tanner Dakota Treleaven, 32, in Edmonton on Thursday.David Ryder/Reuters
Canadian and American border agencies have worked with the RCMP to arrest a Vancouver man who was allegedly importing illegal firearms from the United States while sending small shipments of fentanyl to New York State.
On Friday, B.C.’s specialized gang unit announced Jordan Tanner Dakota Treleaven, 32, was arrested the day before in Edmonton as part of an investigation it started in February with the Canada Border Services Agency into alleged importation of guns.
During the same time, U.S. Customs and Border Protection had intercepted four separate fentanyl shipments of up to 500 grams each bound for New York.
Canadian investigators saw a bulletin about these seizures and touched base with their American counterparts, said Corporal Sarbjit Sangha, spokesperson for B.C.’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, a gang squad made up of police from across the province who operate out of the RCMP’s headquarters in Surrey.
A search warrant of a property allegedly connected to the accused in Vancouver turned up an illegal gun and around 600 grams of fentanyl, Cpl. Sangha said during an interview Friday. A news release said that the suspect remains in custody and faces seven charges, while the gun investigation that spurred the search warrant “remains ongoing and involves a separate suspect.”
Leaders from the RCMP, CBSA and US CBP heralded the joint investigation as evidence of their shared priority in disrupting North America’s illicit trade in fentanyl and its analogues, a deadly class of poisoned substances that has killed tens of thousands of people in Canada and the U.S. over the past decade.
Shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump was re-elected last November he started making claims about Canadian fentanyl “pouring” into his country, part of his pretext for imposing tariffs that have ignited a trade war.
White House using misleading fentanyl data to justify tariffs
Cpl. Sangha said each gram of fentanyl equals roughly 10 doses. The substances seized in this latest investigation are now being analyzed by a lab to see whether the RCMP can connect these drugs to one of the recent busts in B.C. of so-called “superlabs,” she added.
The Globe and Mail recently published an investigation into why only one man has been charged so far in connection with a massive methamphetamine and fentanyl lab dismantled last October in B.C.’s Shuswap region that authorities said took millions of doses off the street.
Investigators on both sides of the borders say Canadian legal precedents guiding evidence disclosure make it difficult for them to secure justice in these complex cases, while critics note officers can work in silos or even at cross-purposes to their colleagues in other units or agencies.
With a report from The Canadian Press