Canadian border officials have intercepted a group of U.S. citizens and arrested one man for allegedly attempting to smuggle hundreds of weapons, ammunition and explosives across the border.
Canada Customs officials said they stopped five men late Sunday night at the St. Bernard de Lacolle Port of Entry in Quebec after one member of the group aroused suspicions about their cargo and destination.
The men were traveling in three vehicles – a minivan and two “cube vans” – and told Canadian border authorities they were bound for Alaska. A spokesman for the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, or CCRA, said that raised doubts among authorities because normally Americans traveling to Alaska through Canada transit border crossings further west.
Reportedly, a woman also was traveling with the group, said a Montreal press report.
The Montreal report also said that at first the American reported nothing to declare. But authorities ultimately became suspicious, and the man finally attempted to declare some hunting rifles. However, serial numbers and other features of the weapons did not match the declaration, authorities told WorldNetDaily, leading Canada Customs officials to search the vehicles.
Upon investigation, authorities turned up more than 100 weapons, including automatic rifles, grenade components, ammunition and black powder. CCRA officials did not disclose the type of rifles, except to say they were of “military origin.” One report said a fully automatic M-16 rifle was among the weapons discovered.
The Quebec Provincial Police is the primary law-enforcement agency handling the case, CCRA officials said.
The American arrested, whose name was not released, was described as a former gunsmith from Connecticut. He was arraigned Thursday in Montreal on 324 charges, most dealing with illegally transporting weapons into the country. The other individuals, whose names also were not released, were sent back to the United States, CCRA officials said.
It was unclear whether American authorities took the released Americans into custody.
Claude Lussier, a CCRA spokesman, said authorities had “no information” indicating the group was affiliated with a terrorist organization. He also said the American in custody had no known ties to organized crime.
“The investigation is continuing, but there were all kinds of weapons,” he told WorldNetDaily, “including submachine guns and some military weapons that were fully automatic.”
Meanwhile, special units of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, have stepped up efforts to intercept guns, drugs and border jumpers between Alaska and Yukon.
After the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001, the Canadian federal government dumped more than a half-billion dollars into the RCMP to improve national security, the White Horse Star newspaper reported this week.
The RCMP, along with American law-enforcement agencies and Alaska state troopers, will work together on investigations and will meet occasionally to compare notes, the paper said.
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WND Staff