Drugs, weapons seized at Canadian border

“As long as there’s a demand for it, people will smuggle it,” says one officer of the Canada Border Services Agency.

He ought to know. Every day, CBSA agents seize illegal guns, drugs and exotic weapons that people are trying to smuggle across the Canadian border.

Global News took a look at CBSA’s haul through an access to information request, and came up with some surprising insights into what illegal products Canadians demand.

On the drug front, Canadians have a vast appetite for marijuana, for anabolic steroids and especially in Toronto, for khat – an East African stimulant. Among weapons, handguns are popular, but not as popular as old-fashioned brass knuckles.

In the articles below, we explore the demand for khat and for steroids, and take a look at some of the stranger weapons that CBSA officers have discovered over the years.

And in our graphics, we show what’s being found stuffed into suitcases, shipped through the mail and otherwise unsuccessfully smuggled into our country.