Two years ago this month, police investigating a kidnapping at a home in Montreal, Canada, found a Glock pistol with a defaced serial number that had been legally purchased in New Hampshire, court documents show.
Ultimately, that single handgun and two subsequently recovered shell casings traced by US authorities gave law enforcement just enough to bring down an international gun trafficking ring, using a relatively new partnership that allows sophisticated intelligence sharing to stop gun violence in Canada, authorities said.
Investigators used advanced tracing techniques to restore the serial number on the Glock 26 recovered in August 2024 and eventually charged 13 defendants as part of an alleged conspiracy that funneled the guns from New Hampshire and into Canada via Indigenous land in upstate New York. At least five defendants have pleaded guilty to federal firearms related charges, according to the US Department of Justice.
One of the defendants in the scheme used jet skis to stash the guns on an island on the St. Lawrence River, where the weapons would be picked up and brought to Canada, according to a detention memo for one defendant.
The major bust was part of an emerging trend with illegal firearms found in Canada: As many as half the crime guns recovered in Canada were smuggled from the US, according to statistics from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
