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Crime

Everything you need to know about the failed assassination attempt of Donald Trump

Published

4 months ago

41 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

Amid all the varying accounts and evidence, there is no clear picture of the attempt to kill Donald Trump, and the FBI and Secret Service have been unwilling or unable to supply answers to the questions raised by the failed assassination.

Almost two weeks have passed since the miraculous survival of Donald Trump and still the major questions raised by his attempted assassination are unanswered.

How can the United States Congress fail to determine the facts of a systematic failure of security which seems almost designed to permit an attempt on the former president’s life?

The obvious questions – how could this happen? – and why? – have equally obvious answers. The reason there are no answers is because Donald Trump is the mortal enemy of the entire political establishment of the U.S. and its subject nations.

We are ruled by a conspiracy against the obvious. The attempt to kill Donald Trump cannot be understood if we do not begin with a statement of the obvious: his political enemies want him dead.

This is a report on the official and unofficial investigations into what the FBI called “an incident” on July 13. As we shall see, the official lines of inquiry effectively exclude the obvious.

The most obvious fact of all is that everyone except the people supposed to protect him have seen this coming for a long time.

See no evil

The version of events presented by the bare facts is another conspiracy against the obvious. The story says a lone gunman – a 20 year old called Thomas Matthew Crooks – decided to shoot Trump one day, and no one stopped him until he had done so. According to CNN, Crooks scoped the site with a rangefinder three hours before the shooting, and was seen doing so, before returning to carry it out. A rangefinder has one use: to report the distance to a target.

Former Secret Service chief Kimberly Cheatle said a rangefinder “is not a prohibited item” when asked why Crooks was not stopped.

Crooks was filmed wandering the perimeter of the Trump rally one hour before the shooting. 

He was photographed by Secret Service snipers and seen on the roof by them – and others – well before the shots were fired. 

‘We cannot trust the FBI’

This report will first examine the official story of a lone gunman acting alone. Cheatle refused to answer whether her agency had produced a complete timeline of Crooks’ movements leading up to the moment of Trump’s shooting.

“We cannot trust the FBI to do an open and honest investigation” said Sen. Ron Johnson, speaking to Fox News.

Johnson also mentions that local law enforcement, tasked with securing the building from which the shooting took place, were instructed to send pictures they took on the day to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). “What does the ATF have to do with this?” he was asked. Perhaps the FBI will explain.

Perhaps not. FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress on July 24 that he had doubts as to whether Trump was shot at all.

This seems callous in the extreme, given that Corey Comperatore was killed and two other men critically injured by the shootings.

During the hearing, it was reported that two FBI agents were on record expressing regret that Trump had survived. 

The FBI, which sees no evil in Crooks which can explain his actions, and whose director insists Crooks “acted alone,” may itself be connected to the shooting.

Reports have surfaced showing a phone connected to Crooks was “pinged” eight times in the vicinity of an FBI field office in 2023.

The Secret Service cannot say whether it has attempted to recreate Crooks’ movements and connections prior to the shooting. In the absence of any evidence of an official attempt to do so, this task has been undertaken by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, and reported on July 22 by independent news outlet Blaze Media:

According to Oversight investigators, a phone associated with Crooks’ work address at a nursing home in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, traveled to the Gallery Place complex in downtown Washington, D.C., on June 26, 2023. The phone ‘pinged’ seven or eight times from that location the same day.

Gallery Place – an 11-story mixed-use building constructed over the Chinatown Metro station – is filled with retail stores and restaurants but also houses offices of the FBI on the upper floors, former FBI Special Agent Kyle Seraphin told Blaze News.

‘It is the closest [location] off-site that I’m aware of to the Washington Field Office,’ Seraphin said. ‘Agents are assigned to Washington Field, but they work out of Gallery Place.’

Former Secret Service chief Cheatle told Congress she knew how many bullet casings were found beside Crooks’ body – but refused to tell Congress. Cheatle referred Congress to the FBI for more information.

This is significant. At least nine – some say ten shots – were recorded on the day. A burst of three, followed by a different sounding burst of five, then perhaps another, then finally the single shot from the Secret Service sniper who killed Crooks.

The number of ejected shell casings on the roof beside Crooks would indicate how many shots came from him on that roof. Cheatle’s refusal to tell Congress is a refusal to admit what sound analysis appears to have confirmed: there was more than one shooter on the day.

Sen. Ron Johnson points out Cheatle’s refusal to tell Congress that reports claimed eight shell casings were found beside Crooks’ body.

Oversight Project Director Mike Howell warned of the obvious conflict of interest in permitting the Secret Service and the FBI to investigate themselves:

For the protection of whistleblowers and our investigation, we will not be sharing further information with the congressional task force due to the connective tissue between that entity and FBI, USSS, and other entities.

Mike Benz noted how the Oversight Project’s “parallel” investigation of the Trump assassin “already has more transparency and information than what the FBI is telling us.”

Why would anyone distrust the FBI? Here it refers to “the incident that took place today involving President Trump” and reassures Americans it has “assumed the role of the lead federal law enforcement agency” investigating this “incident.”

 

One role the FBI will play will be that of investigating its own links to the supposed “lone gunman.” FBI Director Wray says the agency still has no idea of the motive behind the shooting.

In addition, the Department for Homeland Security (DHS) will be investigating its own failure to secure the homeland. Sen. Josh Hawley revealed that whistleblowers told him that some of Trump’s security detail were “not even Secret Service. DHS assigned unprepared and inexperienced personnel.”

In place of Secret Service, Hawley’s sources claim Homeland Security Investigations agents were used instead. You can watch a video here which asks you to spot which agents might be “DEI” placements from DHS.

Can we reasonably expect DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to answer for this, or for the DHS “taking over” communications from the Secret Service to Congress?

Apparently not. On July 24, as a U.S. Senate hearing on the “Trump shooting” was announced, Hawley noted that Mayorkas would not be present to answer questions.

Conspiracy or clown show?

There are two ways to see the clear path to the assassination of Trump that Crooks was presented on the day. One – incredible incompetence. Two – a conspiracy to kill the enemy of the status quo.

The attempt to kill Trump is slipping off the news cycle. The latest news is that Kim Cheatle has refused to answer any of the most important questions around the shooting. She appears to have perjured herself before Congress whilst doing so.

She has since resigned. So far, no one has recommended she undergo enhanced interrogation to encourage her to respond to questioning.

Cheatle was even condemned by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as Marjorie Taylor Greene – a genuinely bipartisan outrage at the “security failures” over which Cheatle had presided.

Greene asked bluntly, “Was there a stand down order? Was there a conspiracy to assassinate President Trump?” 

Cheatle said the Secret Service had no audio recordings from the day of the shooting.

Cheatle was shown video of Crooks crawling on the roof before the shooting, asking to explain why he was not seen as a threat.

Cheatle refused to answer when asked whether Crooks was “acting alone,” referring Congress to the FBI investigation.

Following this performance, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer said “there will be more accountability to come” following Cheatle’s resignation. Comer’s pledge displays a confidence that few sane people will share.

The actors from the Deep State are never held to account.

More to this story?

It is unlikely in the extreme that Cheatle, Mayorkas, or any of the people who have sought to destroy Trump will ever be held accountable – unless he takes power in November.

They know this very well, and this is an obvious reason why the only good Trump is a dead Trump to the Deep State. This is a view shared by some members of Congress.

As Rep. Eli Crane asked the House Committee on Homeland Security on July 23:

After partisan attempts to bankrupt Trump, to imprison him for 750 years and countless depictions of him as a modern-day Hitler –  are you surprised that a lot of Americans are like, ‘Maybe there’s more to this story’?

Cheatle’s role in the story was to briefly become it, but her appearance before Congress was a master class in refusing the mention of the obvious.

No news from Cheatle is good news – if you support the official conspiracy theory of a lone gunman, favored by an unlikely series of helpful oversights.

How fortunate was this son of a registered Libertarian? The timeline of Crooks’ movements raises even more questions than those Cheatle declined to answer.

Timeline of events

The court press of the regime which hates Trump has offered a simple timeline of the day. NBC’s “full timeline” has it like this:

5:10PM: Crooks, the shooter, identified as a person of interest.
5:30PM: Crooks spotted with rangefinder.
5:52PM: Crooks spotted on roof by Secret Service.
6:02PM: Trump takes stage.
6:12PM: Crooks fires first shots.

Even the lying press admits a 20-minute gap between Crooks being seen with a rifle on the roof and the shots fired at Trump. He had been noted as suspicious one hour before the shooting.

Sen. Chuck Grassley published video on July 23 that showed agents admitting they had identified Crooks as a danger before he was permitted to start shooting.

The man who was mentioned as “detained” is this man, who appears to be the owner of the bicycle that some accounts – such as that of the U.K.’s Daily Mail – said belonged to Crooks.

Pictures of the bicycle showed a bag on the handlebars and a backpack on the ground beside it.

The bag on the handlebars appears to be the bedroll of Mr. Evans, the owner of the bicycle. Media reports said the bike belonged to Crooks. Evans said he was detained – not for being the shooter. “They thought I had the bomb.”

Agents in the video released by Sen. Grassley can be heard saying they saw Crooks arrive on a bicycle, with a backpack, but then lost sight of him.

NBC’s timeline is far from “full.” It excludes these and other key events, including Crooks’ actions in preparing for the shooting, the presence of explosives in a vehicle at the site, and the eyewitness reports of at least a second shooter.

The timeline: complete?

A far more comprehensive timeline has been published here. It begins with Crooks’ preparations, which included visiting the site three times: once a week beforehand, once on the morning of the shooting – and once more to carry it out.

Crooks bought a remote transmitter to detonate explosives, planned a drone surveillance route, and set up and used “encrypted communications channels” before visiting a shooting range on July 12.

At some point he hid the weapon on site, before the “pac man” perimeter was set up.

Kim Cheatle told Congress “the rooftop was outside of the perimeter” of the Secret Service’s “responsibility.” She did not explain why.

She had previously told the media that the roof, being slightly sloped, was unsafe. Here, Rep. Pat Fallon excoriates Cheatle for this ridiculous non-explanation, saying she should “go back to guarding Doritos,” referring to her previous post as senior director of global security at PepsiCo.

The sniper who shot Crooks was positioned on a much steeper roof, of course.

She did explain why there were no agents on that roof. They were taken off the roof because it was too hot, and went inside the building instead, to take up positions on the second floor of the building.

This gave them clear lines of sight to Crooks, who was “jumping from roof to roof” in plain view of Secret Service positions.

More than one gunman

According to one independent analyst, “The first three shots came from a very different weapon in a different location” to that of Crooks.

Why should anyone believe Chris Martenson, who is just posting on X? Well, his analysis relies on a report of sound signatures which confirmed at least three shooters.

“Deep State-aligned” CNN published a report on July 14 detailing the acoustic analysis of shots fired, naming three separate weapons. That of Crooks, that of the sniper who killed him, and a third weapon.

Martenson says the shots from Shooter 1 have no echo, whilst Shooter 2’s echoes are consistent with Crooks’ position, the report of the AR-15 resounding from the flat roof.

The third sound signature is unexplained.

The sounds from that day do not support the lone gunman conspiracy theory.

This image shows the location of two recordings of the shots fired on the day, which Martenson analyses here. The image below is taken from another account, which suggests a second shooter (the heavy) was firing from a window in a building to the rear of that where Crooks – “the patsy” – was positioned.

Wherever the shots came from, this third weapon was also firing at the stage, says Martenson. He explains that the first three shots have no echo, are muffled, are further away.

Five shots follow, with echoes. Another shot, more of a snapping sound, is heard. Nine shots so far.

Later, the Secret Service sniper shoots. This would be shot number 10 – if the snapping sound is counted.

John Cullen contests Martenson’s account. He says there may have been two shooters in addition to Crooks – drawing on another eyewitness report.

Cullen suggests a shooter may have been positioned in a tree, which one reporter said snipers were aiming at. Police were pictured scaling the tree after the shots with a ladder. 

An eyewitness who says she was present at the rally says she saw “cops pull a guy out of the tree.” She said her friend saw someone shooting from the tree.

Cullen also asks questions concerning the van – said to be that of Crooks – which was towed 10 miles away from outside the Trump rally – despite being reported as being “laden with explosives.”

A report from CNN, however, claims Crooks had a Hyundai Sonata “with an improvised explosive device in the trunk wired to a transmitter he carried.”

Then, Crooks drove his Hyundai Sonata about an hour north, joining thousands of people from around the region who flocked to Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. He parked the car outside the rally, with an improvised explosive device hidden in the trunk that was wired to a transmitter he carried, the official said. Then, investigators believe, he used his newly-bought ladder to scale a nearby building, and opened fire on the former president.

As investigators continue to search for a motive behind the attempted assassination, they are scrutinizing Crooks’ movements before the attack and trying to piece together a timeline of his actions leading up to it.

The New York Times reported two explosive devices in the Hyundai, along with the drone presumed to have been used by Crooks to surveil the site. According to the Times, “So far, [the FBI has] found no evidence that he was motivated by any strong partisan political beliefs or an animus against Mr. Trump.”

Yet the social media site Gab seems to have found an account made by Crooks making strong pro-immigration and pro-Biden remarks.

“While the account made very few posts on the site, the majority of them were in support of President Biden,” Gab CEO Andrew Torba claimed. “A number of posts in particular expressed support for President Biden’s COVID lockdowns, border policies and executive orders.”

Torba made the claims in a July 24 X post.

The refusal to notice the obvious is a hallmark of the agents of the empire of lies. This is a regime which obviously hates Trump, and the truth he tells about their corrupt junta and the murderous wars by which it is enriched. It is obvious that the regime has radicalized millions through its propaganda and lies to defend a dying liberal global order from democracy. The refusal to find any whisper of a motive is the refusal to acknowledge the reality in which this shooting took place.

Did the van – which resembles a vehicle pictured under the water tower – carry the explosives? Did the Hyundai? Did Crooks arrive in two vehicles and on a bicycle as well? The agents in Sen. Grassley’s video mention both the water tower and a van. This is footage we would never have seen had it not been leaked. Why?

All the information which has been useful so far has been released outside official channels. The narrative of the fact-checkers and trusted sources in the mainstream simply does not make sense.

How many shots were fired?

On July 3, the House Committee on Homeland Security met to discuss the assassination attempt.

During the hearing, the Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris told Rep. Eric Swalwell that “eight casings have been recovered,” after Swallwell asked how many rounds the shooter fired.

Rep. Michael McCaul asked Commissioner Paris about the water tower. According to Paris, there were no Secret Service at or on the water tower. McCaul also mentions explosives in a car, said to be that of Crooks, which Crooks was presumably intending to detonate using a device found on his body.

Who gave the order not to position a sniper on the water tower – the “tallest structure on that site”?

“I do not know,” said Paris.

At the 3-hour, 10-minute mark, Paris confirms that a local police officer gained the roof and was confronted by Crooks, who pointed his weapon at the officer peering over the rooftop.

Paris says that Crooks began firing “a matter of seconds” after this officer came face to face with Crooks, dropping from the roof to avoid being shot himself.

“I’d like to clarify it was a matter of seconds,” says Paris, “because I think earlier it might have been minutes.” Earlier reports suggested an interval of several minutes between the officer’s encounter with Crooks and when, as Paris says, “the first shots rang out.”

Seconds after turning to face a police officer, Crooks is here said to reposition and immediately fire on Trump, narrowly missing his skull.

Hiding in plain sight

Rep. Eli Crane is a former U.S. Navy Seal sniper. On July 22, he posted a video on X from the perspective of a window on a floor occupied by Secret Service agents.

It shows a clear field of view of the roof on which Crooks took position. How could these agents not have seen Crooks?

On the same day, July 22, Crooks posted a video he filmed himself from the roof on which the “supposed sniper took his shot.”

Crane does not believe the official account is credible. This may echo suspicions that the shooter was not Crooks at all. [Caution – graphic image.]

“Why weren’t security team sir, on site, able to spot a 20-year-old kid with zero camouflage crawling up a white roof with an AR-15 that several rally-goers were screaming and yelling and pointing out and they noticed him – and they weren’t even there to conduct security they were there to watch the president – do you have any idea why the security teams couldn’t find that guy?” he asked.

“I do not, sir,” Paris replied.

The lapses in security do not explain how agents with a clear view of the roof of the American Glass Research building on which Crooks was killed could not see him. Crane does not buy the story that Crooks was a lone gunman, and suggests he was not the would-be assassin at all.

At the 3-hour, 34-minute mark, Crane asks Paris whether he is aware that the “lone gunman” narrative is viewed with widespread suspicion.

“Are you aware, sir, that many Americans believe this was very likely not a lone shooter but a coordinated assassination attempt? Have you been getting those messages from people like I have?”

Paris said, “I have not, sir.”

Crane replied:

You haven’t. Well, there’s a lot of people in this room that have been getting the same messages. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that a lot of Americans are like, ‘This doesn’t add up? This doesn’t make sense, guys?’

How could this many things have gone wrong – like the things I pointed out? A 20-year-old kid got 150 yards of the [former] president of the United States with an AR-15, flew a drone to conduct sight surveillance, was spotted with a rangefinder ranging targets, then lost.

He had advanced explosive devices on him, with no military training. Nobody was placed in the most obvious spot to conduct counter-sniper operations.

I was a sniper in the SEAL Teams, Colonel. As soon as I got out of the SUV and I saw that water tower I was like, ‘That’s exactly where I’d be. Put me right there. So obvious.’

After partisan attempts to bankrupt him, imprison him for 700-50 years and countless depictions as a modern-day Hitler, are you surprised, sir, that a lot of Americans are like, ‘Maybe there’s more to this story?’

Crane finishes with reference to a November 30, 2023, article written in the Washington Post by neocon warmonger Robert Kagan, the husband of former under secretary of state Victoria Nuland. The article’s headline reads: “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable – we should stop pretending.”

“This article compares Trump to Caesar and attempts to justify the assassination of President Trump,” Crane said. “I think even though we want to dodge around it and not make this partisan, I think we all know that a lot of this has to do with the very violent rhetoric that has led up to this.”

Crane did not mention that Kagan wrote a follow-up – “The Trump dictatorship: How to stop it” – in January 2024. Kagan said that the system he champions is fighting for its survival, and that stopping Trump is a “matter of life and death.”

Kagan suggested neocon Zionist Nimrata “Nikki” Haley as the savior of the evil and its empire he has done so much to inflict on the world. His family business is war, in which others die and for which he and his murderous clique are celebrated and enriched.

Investigation

Joe Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appointed Janet Napolitano to investigate the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. 

As the Oversight Project of the Heritage Foundation says, “She has a very long record of vehement anti-Trumpism.”

What is more, the House of Representatives announced on July 24 that they will be off “next week” and returning on September 9.

Trump promised to declassify the investigation should he win the election in November 2024.

Former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich asked why the buck had seemed to stop with Kim Cheatle. Why was Mayorkas not removed, too?

Mayorkas’ DHS had already “taken over” the briefing of Congress by July 16, replacing direct communication between the Secret Service and Congress.

According to Politico’s Congress reporter Jordain Carney, a spokesman was reported as saying, “After the Secret Service agreed to brief members of the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, [DHS] took over communications with the Committee and has since refused to confirm a briefing time.”

Oversight’s Mike Howell saw this as a clear case of political obstruction of any “independent review” of the shooting. 

Howell’s picture of the feverish domestic situation in the U.S. is also compelling, saying “years of escalating the tensions” in the U.S. shows how “this is well beyond the Secret Service and their posture.” 

In the aftermath of the shooting, Trump supporters at the rally were filmed directly accusing the mainstream media of inciting the assassination attempt. 

Moves underway to deny Trump protection

Readers may be aware that Democrat lawmakers had drafted legislation to remove Secret Service protection from former President Trump.

Rep. Thomas Massie called for those involved in this move to be barred from participating in the investigation into the attempted assassination.

Rep. Bennie Thompson is one such Democrat congressman.

Thompson explained in the video above that the mechanism of removing Trump’s Secret Service protection relies on whether Trump “is sentenced to jail,” following his legal persecution on felony charges in a process widely criticized as lawfare. Yet as Massie points out, Thompson’s own published fact sheet calls for the removal of Trump’s protection “once he is convicted.”

Responding to the attempted assassination of Trump, Thompson’s own staffer suggested on Facebook that Crooks “should have taken shooting lessons.” Massie also notes that Thompson also “helped Secret Service delete their phone data” relating to the alleged “insurrection” on January 6.

Why should representatives who are engineering the removal of protection from Trump be involved in investigating the effective removal of protection which enabled his attempted assassination?

When reminded of the fact that Trump has just survived an attempt on his life, Thompson is asked to withdraw the legislation to remove Trump’s protective detail.

Thompson refuses to do so, saying “Trump had Secret Service protection in Butler, Pennsylvania.”

Thompson also says the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security – currently Alejandro Mayorkas – can reassign Secret Service protection once Trump has served his sentence.

He does not mention the fact that Trump did not, in fact, have a full Secret Service protective detail in Butler.

Trump to be defended by his enemies?

Massie here raises yet another question that cannot be answered by the official conspiracy theory. It is obvious that Trump is hated by members of the US political class who have worked tirelessly to destroy him. Why should people who want to throw him in prison with no protection be involved in this investigation at all?

Sen. Chuck Grassley has published a letter to Mayorkas, asking whether Mayorkas can explain why local law enforcement was sharing responsibility with Secret Service for securing the building from which Crooks shot at Trump – and why Crooks was able to fly a surveillance drone over the site.

Sen. Grassley also asks “whether the water tower was cleared” and whether the water tower had “any role” in the attempted assassination.

A video taken on July 13 shows a vehicle parked beneath the water tower, as the stage is prepared for Trump’s address.

Redacted news reported three separate eyewitnesses at the rally who were interviewed – claiming shots were fired from a second location. They all indicate the water tower. At the 22-minute mark in this video you can watch them make these claims.

X user Austin Ayers claims this recording is “raw 911 audio” of law enforcement responding to “shots fired towards the blue water tank, blue water tank, that side.”

There is no clear picture of the attempt to kill Donald Trump. The official agencies have been unwilling or unable to supply the answers to the questions raised by the failed assassination.

How can the Senate hope to succeed where Congress has failed? The conspiracy against the obvious did not begin with this shooting. It is the policy of the liberal global regime itself, to deny its agenda of destruction and death, while the evidence of its diabolical designs becomes impossible to ignore.

Whoever fired those shots, whoever was behind the alleged lone gunman and his apparently motiveless crime, and however he arrived to commit it, it is obvious that the number one enemy of the globalist regime was almost shot to death on live television.

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Mexican cartels are a direct threat to Canada’s public safety, and the future of North American trade

Published on November 21, 2024

By

From the Macdonald Laurier Institute

By Gary J. Hale for Inside Policy

RCMP raided a fentanyl ‘superlab’ in Falkland, BC, with ties to a transnational criminal network that spans from Mexico to China.

On October 31, residents of Falkland, BC, were readying their children for a night of Halloween fun. Little did they know that their “quaint, quiet, and low-key little village” was about to make national headlines for all the wrong reasons.

On that day, RCMP announced that it had raided a fentanyl “superlab” of scary proportions near Falkland – one that police called the “largest and most sophisticated” drug operation in Canada. Officers seized nearly half-a-billion-dollars’ worth of illicit materials, including 54 kilograms of finished fentanyl, 390 kilograms of methamphetamine, 35 kilograms of cocaine, 15 kilograms of MDMA, and six kilograms of cannabis” as well as AR-15-style guns, silencers, small explosive devices, body armour, and vast amounts of ammunition.

They also found massive quantities of “precursor chemicals” used to make the drugs. This strongly suggests that the superlab was tied into a transnational criminal network that spans from Mexico to China – one that uses North America’s transportation supply chains to spread its poisonous cargo across Canada and the United States.

The Canada-US-Mexico relationship is comprised of many interests, but the economic benefits of trade between the nations is one of the driving forces that keep these neighbours profitably engaged. The CUSMA trade agreement is the successor to NAFTA and is the strongest example globally of a successful economic co-operation treaty. It benefits all three signatories. This level of interdependence under CUSMA requires all parties to recognize their respective vulnerabilities and attempt to mitigate any threats, risks, or dangers to trade and to the overall relationship. What happens to one affects all the others.

The supply chain, and the transport infrastructure that supports it, affects the balance books of all three. While the supply chain is robust and currently experiences only occasional delays, the different types of transport that make up the supply chain – such as trucks, trains, and sea-going vessels – are extremely vulnerable to disruption or stoppages because of the unchecked violence and crime attributed to the activities of Mexican Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs). These cartels operate throughout Mexico, from the Pacific ports to the northern plains at the US-Mexico border.

The sophistication of the Falkland superlab strongly suggests connectivity to multi-national production, transportation, and distribution networks that likely include China (supply of raw products) and Mexico (clandestine laboratory expertise).

For most Canadians, Mexican cartels call to mind the stereotypical villains of TV and movie police dramas. But their power and influence is very real – as is the threat they pose to all three CUSMA nations.

Mexico’s cartels: a deadly and growing threat

Mexican cartels started as drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) in the 1960s. By the late 1990s they had evolved to become transnational enterprises as they expanded their business beyond locally produced drugs (originally marijuana and heroin) to include primarily Colombian cocaine that they transported through Mexico en route to the US and Canada.

Marijuana and the opium poppy are cultivated in Mexico and, in the case of weed, taken to market in raw form. While the cartels required some chemicals sourced from outside Mexico to extract opium from the poppy and convert it into heroin, the large-scale, multi-ton production of synthetic drugs like Methamphetamine and today Fentanyl expanded the demand for sources of precursor chemicals (where the chemical is slightly altered at the molecular level to become the drug) and essential chemicals (chemicals used to extract, process, or clean the drugs.)

The need to acquire cocaine and chemicals internationalized the cartels. Mexican TCO’s now operate on every continent. That presence involves all the critical stages of the criminal business cycle: production, transportation, distribution, and re-capitalization. Some of the money from drug proceeds flow south from Canada and the US back to Mexico to be retained as profits, while other funds are used to keep the enterprise well-funded and operational.

In Mexico, the scope of their activities is economy-wide; they now operate many lines of criminal business. Some directly affect Mexico’s economic security, such as petroleum theft, intellectual property theft (mainly pirated DVDs and CDs), adulterating drinking alcohol, and exploiting public utilities. Others are in “traditional” criminal markets, such as prostitution, extortion, kidnapping, weapons smuggling, migrant smuggling and human trafficking. Organized auto theft has also become another revenue stream.

Criminal Actors

The Cartel de Sinaloa (CDS or Sinaloa Cartel) and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) are the two principal TCO’s vying for territorial control of Mexico’s air, land, and maritime ports, as well as illegal crossing points. These points on the cartel map are known as “plazas,” and are often between formal ports of entry into the US. By controlling territories crucial for the inbound and outbound movement of drugs, precursors, people, and illegal proceeds, the cartels secretly transport illicit goods and people through commercial supply chains, thus subjecting the transportation segment of legitimate North American trade to the most risk.

That is giving the cartels the power to impair – and even control – the movement of Mexico’s legitimate trade. While largely kept out of the public domain, incidents of forced payment of criminal taxation fees, called “cuotas,” and other similar threats to international business operations are already occurring. For instance, cuotas are being imposed on the transnational business of exporting used cars from the US to Mexico. They’re also being forced on Mexican avocado and lime exporters before the cartels will allow their products to cross the border to the US and international markets. This has crippled that particular trade. Unfortunately, the Mexican government has been slow to react, and the extortion persists throughout Mexico. It is worth repeating – these entirely legitimate goods reach the market only after cartel conditions are met and bribes paid.

The free trade and soft border policies of the US of recent years have allowed cartel operatives to enter that country and work the drug trade with limited consequence. In May, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) published the National Drug Threat Assessment 2024, where it reported that the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels operate in all 50 US states and are engaged in armed violence in American cities as they fight for market shares of the sales of Methamphetamine, Fentanyl, and other drugs sourced from Mexico.

The DEA’s findings should sound alarms in Canada. Canada and the US have similar trade and immigration policies, which allow the Mexican cartels to easily enter and control the wholesale component of the drug trade. The long-term effects of the drug trade are the billions of dollars gained that allow for the corruption of government officials. Canada should be on guard: Mexican drug cartels in Canada could begin to not only kill ordinary Canadians by knowingly selling them deadly drugs like Fentanyl – their operatives can also embed themselves in Canadian society, as they have in the US, leading to ordinary citizens on Canadian streets being victimized by the armed violence cartels regularly use to assert their position and power.

Organized crime and Mexican governance

Canada faces these threats directly, but the indirect ones that the cartels present to Mexican governance are no less consequential to Canada in the long term – and likely sooner. Illicit agreements between corrupt Mexican government officials and the cartels assure that the crime organizations retain control of territory and have freedom to operate.

That threat is becoming increasingly existential. Cartel fighters are well disciplined, well equipped and strong enough to challenge Mexico’s military, currently the government’s main tool to fight them. Should the TCOs come to dominate Mexican society or gain decisive influence over government policy, Mexico’s government risks being declared a narco-democracy and the US may come to see the cartels as a threat to national security. That in turn could lead to a US military intervention in Mexico – not an outcome desired by either side.

While that scenario may be considered extreme, it is not as far from reality as many may think. While in many respects the US-Mexico trading relationship remains unchanged, the overall political context has become testy – and could be a real flashpoint for the incoming Trump administration.

Political developments in Mexico have played a role. After his election in 2018, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (commonly referred to his initials, AMLO) demonstrated a disdain for all things North American. This included frequent complaints of US interference or violation of Mexican sovereignty – complaints that were more about keeping Mexican government domestic actions out of the public eye. To retain a shroud of secrecy over government corruption, Mexico under Amlo started in 2022 to limit the activities and numbers of US federal law enforcement agencies operating there, particularly the FBI, DEA, ATF and ICE. These agencies formerly enjoyed a close relationship with the Mexican Federal Police – a force AMLO disbanded and replaced with the National Guard. The AMLO administration reduced the number of US assets and agents in Mexico, particularly singling out the DEA for the most punitive restrictions.

During his administration, AMLO placed the army and navy in charge of all ports of entry and gave them responsibility for all domestic public safety and security by subordinating the Guardia Nacional (GN), or National Guard, to the army. The GN, the only federal law enforcement agency, has been taken over by military officials who are sometimes corrupt and in league with the cartels.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office in 2024, has continued AMLO’s organizational moves. Sheinbaum comes from the same political party and has so far extended carte blanche to the military, whose administration is opaque and now operates with impunity, under the guise of “national security” and “sovereignty” concerns.

It is expected that Sheinbaum will continue to shield American eyes from Mexico law enforcement and judicial affairs. The fear in the US law enforcement and national security community is that Sheinbaum may even declare DEA non grata, much as then Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2005 and Bolivian President Evo Morales in 2008 did in their countries. Both were anti-American leftists of the same mindset as AMLO and Sheinbaum, who feared detection of their connections to the illegal drug trade.

Sheinbaum has publicly demonstrated disinterest in the consistent application of the rule of law against the TCOs by stating that she will continue the “hugs not bullets” (“abrazos, no balazos”) non-confrontational, non-interventional posture towards organized crime. Agreements with corrupt government officials will allow the cartels to expand their business and to operate with impunity. Through intimidation, bribery, and murder, the cartels affect decision making at the municipal, state, and federal levels of Mexican government. That leverage, while performed outside the public eye, has the potential to negatively affect supply and demand among the three countries at the very least, and at worst, to signal that cartels in Mexico are directly or indirectly involved in the formulation of government security, immigration, drug, and trade policy.

AMLO enacted constitutional changes that will provide Sheinbaum with the powers of a dictator, giving her administration unchecked control of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. As a result, the judiciary in Mexico is in crisis mode with 8 of 11 Supreme Court Justices resigning in October 2024 to protest the unconstitutional disregard for due process that started with AMLO and continues with Sheinbaum thanks to a “voting for judges” law that she and AMLO have rammed into operation without debate. This development portends even more corruption.

Without the existence of an independent judicial system, these institutional changes could give pause to US and Canadian negotiators when it comes time to renew CUSMA in 2026.

Beyond 2025: Mexican organized crime as a threat to the US and Canada, and Greater North American implications

Most worrying, the cartels will be in a yet stronger position to affect and even dictate the pace and volume of legitimate trade between the US and Mexico under Sheinbaum. This makes Mexico the weakest link among the three CUSMA members.

The US and Canada should therefore be concerned about the strength and power of the cartels because the current trajectory could provide them a greater role in Mexico’s performance as a trade partner. Should this trend continue, the US would likely begin to see Mexico through the lens of a threat to critical components of its national security: 1) the public safety of US citizens being killed in epidemic proportions by the drugs produced by citizens of Mexico; 2) the negative impact or increased cost of commerce that supplies goods to the American market; and 3) the CUSMA relationship that sustains the economic strength of all three participating countries.

This worrisome evolution requires proactivity by Canada and the US to insist that Sheinbaum reverse the gains that the cartels have made to influence policy and erode the government’s monopoly on territorial control and the use of violence, and reverse Mexico’s limits on drug enforcement co-operation with what should be its partners to the north. Pressure should also be applied to demand a return to a drug policy model that includes international law enforcement co-operation and a continuation towards the transformation of the Mexican judicial system from a mixed inquisitorial or accusatorial system to an adversarial system that employs the use of juries, witness testimony, oral hearings and trials, and cross-examination of witnesses, as opposed to a system where cartel-influenced elections could dictate judicial outcomes.

The implications of the further development of a Mexico narco-democracy for US-Mexico-Canada relations would be devastating. Co-operation on public safety and security would cease completely, allowing the cartels to take full control of commercial supply lines, significantly reducing trade between the three nations – likely causing the CUSMA trade deal to fracture until governance returned to duly elected civilian officials.

Continental security and Canada’s contribution

The continued success of CUSMA lies with Mexico more than any other country. Should Mexico continue on its path to autocracy, it could upset the trade deal, crucial to the prosperity of all three countries. Canada is not immune from what on the surface may appear to be mostly bilateral, US-Mexico issues, because, regardless of the commodity – whether it’s consumables or manufactured items – the cartels are positioned and empowered to affect imports, exports, trade, and migration throughout North America.

For the foreseeable future, Mexico is not going to voluntarily change its security posture. This enables the cartels to remain persistent threats, especially to trade. Canada and the US need to continue to jointly insist that Mexico take a stronger stance against organized crime and that it take steps to strengthen the judiciary and the rule of law in that country.

Gary J. Hale served 31 years in the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), retiring as an executive-level intelligence analyst. In 2010, he was appointed as Drug Policy fellow and Mexico Studies Scholar at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

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Canada’s struggle against transnational crime & money laundering

Published on November 7, 2024

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From the Macdonald-Laurier Institute

By Alex Dalziel and Jamie Ferrill

In this episode of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Inside Policy Talks podcast, Senior Fellow and National Security Project Lead Alex Dalziel explores the underreported issue of trade-based money laundering (TBML) with Dr. Jamie Ferrill, the head of financial crime studies at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia and a former Canada Border Services Agency officer.

The discussion focuses on how organized crime groups use global trade transactions to disguise illicit proceeds and the threat this presents to the Canada’s trade relationship with the US and beyond.

Definition of TBML: Trade-based money laundering disguises criminal proceeds by moving value through trade transactions instead of transferring physical cash. Criminals (usually) exploit international trade by  manipulating trade documents, engaging in phantom shipping, and altering invoices to disguise illicit funds as legitimate commerce, bypassing conventional financial scrutiny. As Dr. Ferrill explains, “we have dirty money that’s been generated through things like drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms trafficking, sex trafficking, and that money needs to be cleaned in one way or another. Trade is one of the ways that that’s done.”

A Pervasive Problem: TBML is challenging to detect due to the vast scale and complexity of global trade, making it an attractive channel for organized crime groups. Although global estimates are imprecise, the Financial Action Task Force and The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) suggests 2-5% of GDP could be tied to money laundering, representing trillions of dollars annually. In Canada, this could mean over $70 billion in potentially laundered funds each year. Despite the scope of TBML, Canada has seen no successful prosecutions for criminal money laundering through trade, highlighting significant gaps in identifying, investigating and prosecuting these complex cases.

Canada’s Vulnerabilities: Along with the sheer volume and complexity of global trade, Canada’s vulnerabilities stem from gaps in anti-money laundering regulation, particularly in high-risk sectors like real estate, luxury goods, and legal services, where criminals exploit weak oversight. Global trade exemplifies the vulnerabilities in oversight, where gaps and limited controls create substantial opportunities for money laundering. A lack of comprehensive export controls also limits Canada’s ability to monitor goods leaving the country effectively. Dr. Ferrill notes that “If we’re seen as this weak link in the process, that’s going to have significant implications on trade partnerships,” underscoring the potential political risks to bilateral trade if Canada fails to address these issues.

International and Private Sector Cooperation: Combating TBML effectively requires strong international cooperation, particularly between Canada and key trade partners like the U.S. The private sector—including freight forwarders, customs brokers, and financial institutions—plays a crucial role in spotting suspicious activities along the supply chain. As Dr. Ferrill emphasizes, “Canada and the U.S. can definitely work together more efficiently and effectively to share and then come up with some better strategies,” pointing to the need for increased collaboration to strengthen oversight and disrupt these transnational crime networks.

Looking to further understand the threat of transnational organized crime to Canada’s borders?

Check out Inside Policy Talks recent podcasts with Christian Leuprecht, Todd Hataley  and Alan Bersin.

To learn more about Dr. Ferrill’s research on TBML, check out her chapter in Dirty Money: Financial Crime in Canada.

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