Is drug trafficking making shift north?
The recent local arrests of Canadian residents on Interstate 80 could be a sign that some illegal drug trafficking has shifted north of the border, but local law enforcement officials say it’s too early to know for sure.
A recent case involving the largest ecstasy seizure ever in the Quad-Cities involved a Canadian.
Earlier this summer, Stephen Alexander James Bradley, 57, of Guelph, Ontario, was arrested by an Illinois State Police trooper on I-80 in Henry County, Ill., with $500,000 worth of ecstasy.
Last week Bradley, who has pleaded innocent, appeared at a hearing in U.S. District Court, Central District of Illinois, and said he planned to change his plea at a hearing Sept. 20.
Bradley is the second Canadian to be arrested locally in recent months after a traffic stop on the interstate. The other suspect, Graham Jarman, age and address unknown, flew into the United States from Vancouver, British Columbia, last fall. He didn’t have a half-million dollars worth of drugs but was hauling $421,550 in alleged drug money.
Jarman said he was on the return trip after making a cross-country journey from Seattle to Chicago. Jarman was released after his Dec. 10 arrest by an Illinois State Police trooper and in June filed claim in court for the money that was seized.
Statistics from both Canada and the United States show that far more drugs enter the United States through the Mexican border, and more drugs are exported into Canada from the United States than the United States imports, but few Canadian drug traffickers had been arrested locally until recently.
Rene Sandoval, director of the Quad-City Metropolitan Enforcement Group, said he does not have any statistics tracking the amount of Canadian drug trafficking but theorized if there has been an increase it could be the result of improved border patrols along the Mexican border, which is the traditional entry point for most foreign cannabis.
“The Mexican border right now is really, really tight,” he said. “The Canadian border is extremely large, and the enforcement isn’t nearly the same.”
He said his agency has not arrested any Canadian drug traffickers this year. Border seizure statistics for 2006 were not available.
Patrick Jones, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, doesn’t think the additional border security would divert the flow of drug traffic.
By going to Canada “now you’ve got two security hurdles instead of one,” he said, adding it would be more expensive for the drug dealers, and they would have to rely on traffickers they haven’t used before.
Jones said the main drugs coming into the United States out of Canada are ecstasy and marijuana. He said some methamphetamine likely is coming over the border as well, but not heroin and cocaine.
Both Jones and Sandoval said marijuana from British Columbia, known as BC Bud, is a growing problem for law enforcement in both countries.
Sandoval said the Canadian marijuana is supposed to be more potent and in higher demand. It’s also more expensive.
“You may be seeing a lot more (cannabis) coming out of Canada,” he said. “We have made a couple of arrests and later discovered it’s Canadian weed.”
Sandoval said the Canadian cannabis manufacturers use hydroponics — a soilless form of gardening — to increase the potency of the substance. The plant “almost looks like it’s crystallized,” Sandoval explained.
Jim Saunders, a spokesman for the Iowa State Patrol, said he has not seen enough arrests of Canadian drug traffickers to declare it a trend.
“It takes several years to establish a trend, but I’m not aware of any increased indication that there is more (drug) traffic coming across the Canadian border,” he said.
Dustin Lemmon can be contacted at (563) 383-2493 or dlemmon@qctimes.com