A recent article published by CTV News as a collaboration with the Investigative Journalism Foundation earlier in October and authored by Avery Haines, Joseph Loiero, and Zak Vescera has examined the growing presence of international drug cartels operating within Canada. According to the RCMP Chief Superintendent and Director General of the National Serious and Organized Crime Program, Mathieu Bertrand, at least seven cartels are currently active in Canada. “We are aware that they [cartels] are a source of a lot of the illicit goods coming into Canada. These organized crime groups, whether they be in Canada or abroad, are using Canada as a trans-shipment point,” said Bertrand. “Those groups… are very much involved in crime impacting Canada,” he said.
Data released by the RCMP in 2023 shows that international gangs, including Mexican cartels, have been increasingly using Canadian ports as a transhipment point to ship methamphetamines to countries such as New Zealand and Australia. Specifically, New Zealand is viewed by transnational crime groups as a lucrative destination, since methamphetamine prices escalate from roughly $500 per kilogram in Mexico to $10,000 in Canada and nearly $300,000 in New Zealand, according to a senior New Zealand police officer.
The RCMP has dismantled 11 meth labs in Canada over the past two years, including the largest and most sophisticated in the country’s history in 2024, linked to a Mexican cartel. In addition, the raid on a farm in Falkland, B.C. uncovered 700 kg of meth, 89 firearms, body armour, explosives, and equipment using production methods associated with Mexican cartels. Simultaneous searches in Surrey, B.C. also seized methamphetamine destined for export.
In his interview with CTV News, Tim Fitzgerald, the Deputy Commissioner of National Operations with the Australian Border Force (ABF), said that cartels are increasingly using Canada as a transhipment point for their drugs headed to Australia. “Some meth appears to be manufactured within Canada and others, cartels moving it into Canada and then trans-shipping through Canada to Australia in an attempt to disguise the origins of the goods that they’re concealed in,” he said.
Australian border officials note that packages from Canada often draw less suspicion than those from countries like Mexico, though they continue to be closely monitored. During a tour of a major mail sorting facility in Sydney, officers intercepted a parcel from Ontario containing toys that concealed small packages of methamphetamine, including one inside a plastic pig. However, the seized quantity was too small to trigger an international investigation. Fitzgerald added that shipments from Canada raise less suspicion at the border in Australia than shipments from countries such as Mexico. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not looking,” he said.
