Sam Cooper

A federal jury has convicted Jaskaran Singh, a 31-year-old Indian national working for a transnational drug-trafficking organization supplied from Canada, of smuggling 174 pounds of MDMA across the U.S.-Canada border in a remote, forested area. Singh—who traveled from California to Washington’s northern border to meet three men carrying the Ecstasy load from British Columbia in backpacks and a suitcase—faces up to 20 years in prison and potential deportation.

The conviction comes amid heightened scrutiny of Canada, particularly British Columbia, as a hub for toxic narcotics trafficking fueled by precursor chemicals from China. President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused Canada of becoming a dangerous center for fentanyl production and export. Canadian legal experts say Vancouver’s attractiveness as a jurisdiction with lax port controls, weak laws, and a vast corporate and economic infrastructure facilitating international money laundering and underground banking has contributed to the region’s growth as a drug export center dominated by Chinese Triads and Mexican cartels.

“Mr. Singh trafficked more than 170 pounds of illegal drugs across our northern border into the United States,” stated Acting United States Attorney Richard Barker. The seizure, Barker said, was one of the largest ever in Eastern Washington, with a street value exceeding $7.8 million. Echoing the broader political messaging emanating from Washington, Barker said agents “intercepted this poison before it could harm communities in Eastern Washington.”

“The transnational drug-trafficking organization for whom Singh worked had identified the ideal, isolated location in rural Washington to smuggle illegal drugs across the northern border,” Barker said. “Today’s guilty verdict sends a clear message that those who seek to exploit our nation’s borders by flooding our communities with dangerous controlled substances will be held accountable for their crimes.”

Singh’s smuggling operation unfolded on April 29, 2023, when U.S. Border Patrol agents detected three suspects tripping motion sensor cameras in a remote area south of the U.S.-Canada border, near Danville, Washington. Singh had traveled from Northern California to Washington the day prior, renting a van in Seattle after a last-minute flight. From the U.S. side, he drove up to the Canadian border on the only path in the area, a dead-end dirt road known as Fourth of July Creek Road, U.S. border agents said.

Carrying backpacks and a suitcase, the unidentified smugglers from British Columbia trekked across 300 yards of wilderness to meet him. Minutes later, agents stopped Singh driving a rented 2014 Honda Odyssey south on the dead-end dirt track. Inside the van, they found the luggage containing MDMA worth over $7.8 million. Testimony at trial established that the three men transported the MDMA from the Canadian side of the border to where Singh had parked the rented Odyssey van.

Key digital evidence, according to prosecutors, included data from Singh’s phone revealing a map and messages directing him to the drop point, instructing him to “leave the back hood open.”

The three couriers escaped back to Canada, but Singh was arrested.

The case highlights a growing nexus between MDMA and fentanyl trafficking, as outlined in the U.S. State Department’s 2024 report from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. It notes that transnational criminal organizations, including the Sinaloa Cartel, are increasingly diversifying their portfolios, trafficking both MDMA and fentanyl due to overlapping production and distribution networks. While fentanyl dominates U.S. overdose deaths, MDMA remains lucrative, often produced in clandestine labs using precursor chemicals sourced from the same global suppliers—primarily in China—that fuel fentanyl synthesis.

Singh’s conviction follows a recent British Columbia civil forfeiture case targeting a Sinaloa-linked cartel cell in Surrey, minutes from the Peace Arch border crossing. On September 23, 2024, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided a luxury property on 77th Avenue, seizing numerous Mexican passports, MDMA, fentanyl, methamphetamine, ketamine, and other drugs, alongside 23 firearms and cash bundled inconsistently with banking norms. Court filings allege the cell, led by figures like Hector Chavez-Anchondo, negotiated directly with Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia—arrested in July 2024—for cocaine imports, pivoting to other suppliers post-arrest. The B.C. Director of Civil Forfeiture claims this group trafficked a range of substances, including MDMA and fentanyl, using violence to maintain operations.

While fentanyl trafficking from Canada into the United States appears to have surged since 2023, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2024 report, RCMP say that most fentanyl produced in Canada was being trafficked to Australia and New Zealand, as well as distributed domestically.

“Transnational criminal organizations in Canada receive the bulk of fentanyl precursor chemicals from the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” the report says, adding “Canadian Border Services Agency estimated that 98 percent of Canada’s fentanyl-making materials seized in western Canada originated in the PRC.”

In another major case linking Chinese fentanyl, methamphetamine, and MDMA precursors to Vancouver labs and transnational narco-networks, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Vancouver-based Valerian Labs and its head, Canadian national Bahman Djebelibak, in October 2023. According to the report, the company received shipments of methylamine hydrochloride—a precursor for methamphetamine and MDMA—from a PRC-based supplier and attempted to procure substances used in the production of fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine.

“In the past year, Canadian law enforcement conducted several high-profile raids on fentanyl labs in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario,” the State Department report adds. “In April 2023, the Vancouver Police Department raided a fentanyl super lab that possessed approximately $5.9 million in illicit drugs. In August 2023, police in Ontario dismantled a large network of opioid producers through Project Odeon in the Greater Toronto Area. In November 2023, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia raided a large fentanyl lab and seized 2.5 million doses of fentanyl.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney, who succeeded Justin Trudeau, has maintained that Canada has strengthened security and resources at the northern border in response to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands for action.

Speaking at a campaign stop in Kelowna on February 12, 2025, Carney acknowledged the severity of the issue while downplaying Canada’s vulnerability. “Fentanyl is an absolute crisis in the United States. It’s a challenge here, but it’s a crisis there,” he stated.