Another U.S.-Canada border bust: Gun smuggling operation

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(The Center Square) – A gun smuggling operation run by Canadian, Pakistani and Jordanian citizens has been thwarted at the U.S.-Canada border, authorities said.

While illegal border crosser crime has dropped considerably at the U.S.-Canada border from the Biden administration era, border crime is still ongoing, including human, drug and weapons smuggling and trafficking.

On Friday, three men were magistrated before a federal judge in White Plains, New York, and detained after their arrest for an alleged gun running scheme. The scheme involved trafficking 89 firearms, including at least 17 stolen firearms, and attempting to smuggle them to Canada through or near an Indian reservation.  

Canadian national Malik Bromfield, Pakistani national Faizan Ali, and Kamal Salman, who claims to have citizenship in Canada, Jordan and the U.S., were arrested on Thursday after a traffic stop in Liberty, New York, in Sullivan County.

They were each charged with smuggling, unlicensed dealing in firearms, transporting stolen firearms in interstate commerce and unlawful possession of firearms, according to the complaint. Bromfield was also charged with “unlawful possession of a firearm by an alien.” If convicted, they each face decades in prison. 

“As alleged, Malik Bromfield, Faizan Ali, and Kamal Salman were caught transporting more than 80 guns, including short-barreled rifles and stolen firearms, to smuggle them out of the country,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said. “It is critically important to New Yorkers and Americans to keep illegal weapons out of the hands of criminal actors.  The trafficking of dangerous weapons will be relentlessly pursued by this Office.”

On or about May 7, New York State Police pulled over Bromfield, driving a vehicle with a North Carolina license plate, after he was allegedly swerving in out of lanes near State Route 90. The troopers asked the men to exit the vehicle and after receiving inconsistent and evasive responses to questioning troopers discovered an array of alleged criminal activity. 

Bromfield claimed he was traveling from New York City to Syracuse to visit Salman’s family members, according to the complaint. Salman and Ali said they were traveling from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Law enforcement later learned that they had left Jupiter, Florida, the day before they were arrested. 

The stop led to the troopers finding an Afghan national’s ID card, suspected narcotics, a weapons cache and $3,000 in cash, and an alleged plan to traffic weapons into Canada for profit, according to the criminal complaint.

After Ali consented to a roadside search of his person, a trooper found an “expired Pakistani National Driving Permit issued to an Afghan national in another name concealed in ALI’s buttocks,” according to the complaint. 

Salman and Bromfield declined searches resulting in a canine sweeping the exterior of the vehicle. The canine alerted troopers to the potential presence of narcotics. 

After the canine search resulted in probable cause, the troopers initiated a preliminary search of the vehicle and found an unusually heavy suitcase. Inside was the weapons cache.  

Additional firearms were found on the floor of the back seat, according to the complaint.

They also found a GPS navigation app on Bromfield’s phone’s home screen with an address in or near Hammond, New York, located across the St. Lawrence River from Ontario, Canada. 

The location is a hotspot for illegal border crosser crime through the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory. The territory, which straddles the international border along the St. Lawrence River, has been a target of human, drug and weapons smuggling, as well as other crimes, The Center Square reported. Understaffed with limited resources, First Nation chiefs have had difficulty combatting smuggling and trafficking crime. 

Upon further investigation, Ali has at least four outstanding arrest warrants in Canada, including one related to a fatal automobile collision and another connected to alleged methamphetamine trafficking, according to the charges.

The complaint includes details about the seized firearms, including those reported stolen in Pasadena, Texas, and Fort Lauderdale and North Miami Beach in Florida.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives New York Field Office, and FBI-New York Hudson Valley Safe Streets Task Force, are involved in an ongoing investigation. 

The bust comes as ongoing border security efforts continue at the northern border after the president declared a national emergency at the northern border last February, The Center Squa.