🌊 What’s Crossing the Canadian Border?

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By Max Hudgins

In 2022, Michael Habib and his co-conspirators began a plot to smuggle drugs across the US border. Between March and November, the group brought thousands of pounds of cocaine, meth, and two hitmen into the US, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. When federal agents eventually apprehended Habib, they found nearly 500 kg of cocaine and 100 kg of meth. 

Except these drugs didn’t come across the southern border, and Habib wasn’t working for a Mexican cartel. They came from the north – and Habib was working for Wolfpack Alliance, a Canadian gang.

After taking office, President Trump vowed to tackle this alleged plight of Canadian-US trafficking: On February 1, he announced 25% tariffs on both Canada and Mexico in order to hold the countries “accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country.” 

This Friday, 35% tariffs are poised to take effect on Canadian goods, unless a deal – potentially involving both trade and crime – is reached. But what’s actually crossing the northern border?

Compared to the southern border, the northern border is bigger and less secure. The US and Canada share the longest international land border in the world, making it far more difficult to patrol than the southern one. Yet unlike the US-Mexico border, there isn’t a narco state on the other side.  

According to US Customs and Border Protection statistics, the overwhelming majority of contraband that enters the US over land comes from Mexico. In 2024, 99% of meth and fentanyl, 94% of cocaine, and 88% of marijuana entered the US via the southern border. 

Still, since 2019, Canada’s fentanyl industry has grown: That year, China cracked down on the production and export of fentanyl, prompting criminal organizations in Canada, including Mexican cartels, to begin manufacturing their own. That, in turn, led Canadian authorities to shift their focus from catching criminals at the border to tracking them down in their own country. 

In the years since, fentanyl has become a major problem in parts of Canada. Canada’s government responded not by targeting drug traffickers, but by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on drug-related initiatives, including to prevent and treat substance abuse.

The Biden Administration had little issue with this. In December, it released a progress report about the US and Canada’s Joint Action Plan on Opioids, touting a collaborative effort to combat organized drug crimes. The report said the sides were cooperating and ensuring their borders were secure, but didn’t provide quantitative data about what was actually happening.

Then Trump took office. 

Only 48 hours after Trump released his plans to hit Canada with tariffs, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would spend nearly $1B to implement one of the most significant border protection investments in years. Trudeau said the plan was to “reinforc[e] the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl.” He also announced the appointment of a new “border czar,” the listing of drug cartels as terrorists, and the creation of a joint US-Canada force to combat organized crime. 

A Canadian border crackdown proceeded: Under Canada’s new border czar, the Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) launched an operation that it said produced 2,600 narcotics seizures across the US-Canada border, including hundreds of pounds of cocaine and methamphetamine. 

But did that actually make a difference? 

Kind of: Except Canadian authorities said that 67.5% of the seized drugs were coming from the US, not going there. This came a year after Canadian authorities announced that they had traced 88% of the 717 illegal firearms seized in Toronto back to the US. While American authorities touted the Canadian crackdown as helping stop trafficking into the US, the Canadians said it was stopping trafficking from the US. 

Yet fentanyl was primarily US bound: Of the 1.73 kg seized, 1.44 kg – 83% – was US bound. That’s potentially enough for 715,000 lethal doses, albeit a miniscule amount in the scheme of the fentanyl trade.

People are also more likely to be illegally heading south.

Recent years saw an uptick in migration from Canada to the US, culminating in authorities apprehending 18,644 illegal immigrants crossing southward in May 2024, the highest monthly total that year. Human traffickers in Canada actively advertise on social media – including in English, Spanish, and Punjabi – promising to smuggle immigrants from around the world into the US. A smuggling guide can cost upwards of $3,000. 

Most of these migrants come from Latin America, but not all: In January 2022, a family of four Indians – including an 11-year-old girl and three-year-old boy – froze to death while attempting to cross the Canadian border into Minnesota during a blizzard.

Yet like with drugs, vastly more crime is taking place on the southern border: In May 2024, when authorities encountered a record 18,000+ people crossing the northern border into the US, nearly six times as many – 117,900 – were caught crossing from Mexico.

The bigger volume of both human and drug smuggling at the southern border means that Mexican gangs are vastly more powerful than Canadian ones. Mexican cartels run both Canada’s people and drug smuggling routes. In fact, the gang of Michael Habib – Wolfpack Alliance, mentioned at the start of this article – is no longer relevant after being conquered by a Mexican cartel. According to the crime journalists Peter Edwards and Luis Horacio Nájera, the Sinaloa Cartel used the Wolfpack Alliance to get a toehold in Canada, and then destroyed it. The cartel is now running drugs and people into the US from both the north and south.

So is crime a major problem on the northern border? Maybe, but not a fraction as much as on the southern border. 

Editor’s Note

Thanks for reading today. And if you noticed the new name at the top of this story, you’re not hallucinating: A new third Max – a long-term Roca reader who is now writing for us – authored this piece. Let us know what you think: Are the tariffs Trump has threatened on Canada fair, given the situation along the US-Canada border?

We appreciate all the comments on our interview with Mayor Eric Adams, especially the fashion advice. We’ll keep it in mind for the next visit. 

Greg wrote:

Julie wrote:

And Woody wrote:

Looking for more reading? Find our past five stories below:

• Roca’s Exclusive Interview with Mayor Eric Adams

• The Death of Late Night Comedy

• Everything About Epstein’s Relationship With Trump

• The Mortgaging of Gen Z’s Future

• Inside Dollar General’s Takeover of America

Enjoy your Thursdays. We’ll be back tomorrow.

—Max and Max