Secret weapon of cross-border smugglers: "The Trap Maker"

A multi-million-dollar smuggling network moving from Mexico into the United States and then into Canada used a fleet of trucks with crafty, concealed hiding spots not even detected by X-Ray machines.

The Mob Reporter here to introduce you to “The Trap Maker.” Well, we don’t actually get to meet him face-to-face, not yet anyway. Instead, we meet him through his handiwork, his artistry. A bit like Banksy, the famous anonymous street artist. No. Not really.

Technically, this is his alleged handiwork — because he was only arrested this week as part of the largest ever international drug probe in the history of Toronto, Canada’s largest city, a metropolis of 3 million people, the fourth largest in North America, behind only Mexico City, New York and Los Angeles. Toronto police unveiled the fruits of a seven-month long international drug probe this week. Seized during raids and search warrants were more than 1,000 kilos of drugs secretly being shuttled from Mexico into California, across the length of the United States and across a second border into Canada, where it was offloaded in Toronto for distribution. Police estimate its value at more than $61 million. Also seized was almost a million dollars in cash, 21 vehicles — including five tractor trailers and a Mercedes G-Wagon — and a Glock.

Project Brisa was chosen as the operation’s name because the first truck police caught was carrying a load of hairdryers. Brisa is Spanish for “breeze.” Toronto Police Chief James Ramer said the quantities being moved were “frankly staggering.”

Twenty people were arrested and two people couldn’t be found when police moved in. They remain fugitives at the time I’m making this: Both Toronto men, Scott McManus, who has a history of his own, and William Nhan.

During the investigation, police say they identified the man responsible for building the traps, whose evocative but unimaginative nickname was “the Trap Maker.” On June 22, 2021, police identified him as Jason Hall, a 43-year-old man from Surrey, British Columbia, on the other side of the country from the traffickers’ Toronto base. He has no known criminal record.

Canada - MR.