Nearly one-third of seized fentanyl attributed to the U.S.-Canada border had no connection with Canada

Open this photo in gallery:

The data the White House has cited to say Canada is responsible for a “massive” increase in fentanyl flowing across the northern border include a large drug bust that, according to the U.S. border agency, has no known connection to Canada.

In justifying its plans for tariffs on Canadian goods, the White House said in a statement Monday that 43 pounds of fentanyl had been seized at the northern border last fiscal year, representing a “massive 2050 per cent increase” compared with the fiscal year prior, when two pounds of fentanyl was intercepted.

However, court records and interviews indicate that about one-third of the 43-pound tally was seized in July in Spokane, Wash. – more than 150 kilometres from the border with Canada – as part of an investigation last summer that led to charges against three Mexican nationals.

Is fentanyl from Canada really invading the U.S.? What we know so far about Trump’s border claim

Fentanyl czar to help execute plan to minimize or eliminate drug in Canada, Public Safety Minister says

The finding undercuts assertions by the Trump administration that Canada is a rapidly growing source of fentanyl in the United States and that hefty tariffs are justified to force Ottawa to take action.

Although the seizure of 14.8 pounds of fentanyl is listed in U.S. Customs and Border Protection data as associated with the “northern border,” and therefore included in last year’s 43-pound total, a spokesperson for the agency said the seizure has no known nexus to Canada. It was included in the total because of its proximity to the border and the involvement of northern border patrol staff in the investigation, which was conducted by a task force from multiple U.S. law-enforcement agencies.

The months-long probe, which was led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, is outlined in documents filed in U.S. District Court in Spokane. This includes an affidavit sworn by a Customs and Border Protection northern border patrol official who had been working with the DEA.

The operation involved a search of two vehicles and a house, and resulted in the seizure of approximately 68,000 pills presumed to be fentanyl, as well as several firearms, large bundles of U.S. currency and several other drugs such as methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin.

Investigators amassed evidence that a car used by the alleged drug traffickers, which had California licence plates, travelled from Phoenix to Spokane in the weeks prior to the seizure, court records show. There is no mention of Canada in the criminal indictment against the three men, or the affidavit sworn by the border agent.

“The evidence developed in this case is consistent with membership in a cartel-based drug trafficking network,” prosecutors state in one of the court filings. Osvaldo Guadalupe Soto-Orduno, Jose Roman Lizarraga Gerardo and Jose Efrain Gonzalez Rodriguez were charged in connection with the investigation. The allegations have not been tested in court.

In an interview Tuesday, Customs and Border Protection agency spokesman Steven Bansbach said that drug interceptions that happen in the vicinity of the Canada-U.S. border can be considered to have been seized at the northern border. “We seized those items – that fentanyl – and we don’t necessarily have any information that proves it is or isn’t from Canada, or has a nexus to Canada,” Mr. Bansbach said.

The White House did not respond to The Globe’s request for comment as of deadline Tuesday evening.

The U.S. on Monday agreed to delay threatened 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian imports, and 10-per-cent levies on oil, after Canada addressed U.S. President Donald Trump’s concerns about fighting an overdose crisis in the United States exacerbated by illegal fentanyl smuggled into American territory.

Canada has agreed to designate drug cartels as terrorist groups and has promised to appoint a fentanyl czar to co-ordinate a national campaign against illegal production and distribution of the deadly opioid.

Law enforcement officials in Canada acknowledge that fentanyl production in Canada is a growing problem. But they have also repeatedly made the case that fentanyl smuggling from Canada into the United States represents a tiny fraction of the thousands of pounds of illicit fentanyl trafficked from Mexico into American territory each year.

The White House’s assertion that the northern border has seen a 2,050-per-cent increase in fentanyl seizures last year over the year prior hinges on two outlier numbers: the 43-pound figure for fiscal year 2024, which includes the significant Spokane bust, and the two-pound figure for fiscal year 2023. According to the Customs and Border Protection data, 14 pounds of fentanyl had been intercepted at the northern border in fiscal year 2022.

“Canada has seen a massive increase in fentanyl trafficking across its border,” U.S. Vice-President JD Vance said Sunday on social media platform X. The Globe asked the White House whether Mr. Vance was basing his comment on the border agency’s data that included the Spokane case, but did not receive a response before deadline Tuesday.

The Globe reviewed some other interception incidents that contributed to the 43-pound total at the northern border. One of the larger ones involved six pounds of fentanyl seized in Detroit in June. Border officers were inspecting inbound international mail when a canine alerted them to the possible presence of fentanyl. In that case, Customs and Border Protection officials say, the shipment originated in Canada.

There are other significant fentanyl seizures recorded in Washington state that are logged as northern border seizures in the agency’s 2024 data. These include a seizure of two pounds of the opioid by the Customs and Border Protection’s Spokane sector in March, a seizure of three pounds by the Spokane sector in September and a seizure of 2.6 pounds by its Seattle field office in October. Officials with the agency could not say Tuesday whether these seizures had any known connection to Canada.

Taken together with the 14.8-pound seizure in Spokane last summer, these Washington state seizures account for about half of the interdictions by weight that the White House cited in its statement Monday.

The overall number of organized crime groups in Canada manufacturing illicit drugs such as fentanyl has nearly doubled in the past year, from 51 in 2023 to 99 in 2024, according to a report published in January by the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada.

That report said powerful Mexican and Latin American drug cartels are forming international alliances, including with crime groups inside Canada. In October, the RCMP announced they had dismantled a Falkland, B.C., facility they claimed was “the largest and most sophisticated fentanyl and methamphetamine drug superlab in Canada.”

The trafficking of fentanyl is killing an estimated 80,000 people a year in North America, according to the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body that sets standards to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.