Confessions of a gun smuggler: Former trafficker reveals how she brought weapons into Canada

Everyone knows guns utilized by Canadian criminals are often smuggled from the U.S. Not everyone knows however — not similar Naomi Haynes does. That's due to the fact that she did the smuggling. 

A autochthonal Montrealer who's been surviving successful the U.S. for decades, she helped postulation dozens of weapons into Canada, immoderate linked straight to cause gangs.

"I wasn't reasoning astir the havoc I was causing successful my commencement land," she told CBC News last week.

"I've got my kids, I've got bills. The lone happening I [was] reasoning astir is monetary gains. I wasn't reasoning astir the radical who are going to beryllium affected."

CBC News established interaction with Haynes portion she was successful situation — astatine archetypal communicating by email, past with a glitchy situation video app and then successful a lengthy interrogation pursuing her merchandise past year.

Her communicative helps shed airy connected the thousands of guns a twelvemonth successful Canada that constabulary hint to the U.S.

She described, successful detail, tricks of the smuggling trade. And however she managed to determination drugs, cash and, eventually, guns, for galore years, depending connected the merchandise — either into the U.S., betwixt U.S. states or into Canada.

Rule No. 1: Only 1 idiosyncratic per car. If the conveyance gets stopped astatine the border, you don't privation 2 partners tripping implicit each other's communicative during secondary questioning.

"There's lone 1 communicative this way," said Haynes, 45. "If you person 2 drivers, there's conflicting stories, and that's erstwhile you person problems.… 'Oh, you're coming from Virginia, but your person says [she's] coming from Baltimore.'

"So conscionable 1 driver, truthful they tin instrumentality with their 1 lie."

Rule No. 2: Find a bully hiding spot. She would stash items successful hidden compartments nether seats; successful doorway panels; successful the trunk. She'd besides determination drugs successful a state vessel — successful triple-sealed, vacuumed bags.

Rule No. 3: Get drivers who won't arouse suspicion. Haynes didn't transport guns herself; she got pulled implicit excessively often. She'd thrust successful a abstracted vehicle.

"I started paying achromatic girls and guys to determination worldly for me," she said. Especially achromatic women. They ne'er got pulled over, she said. 

Until 1 did.

Haynes was arrested successful 2019, charged with smuggling, and with conspiracy to marque mendacious statements; she pleaded guilty, was sentenced, and served conscionable nether 5 years successful prison.

Hers is an antithetic story. She's a vegan, millennial, Jamaican Canadian governmental subject grad successful South Florida who supports Donald Trump, became a grandma and coiled up successful an planetary conspiracy.

Then again, her beingness communicative was atypical from the start.

Escaping Montreal

"At the extremity of the day, you go what you know," Haynes said. 

She grew up astir cause dealers. Her precocious begetter dealt crack, past smoked it. In a publication she's penning astir her beingness story, Haynes describes a play erstwhile helium became meaner, zoned retired and indifferent, his eyes bloodshot.

Her publication describes 1 sister jailed for selling ecstasy. Another sibling, her brother, led a section thoroughfare gang, according to the Montreal Gazette.

She grew up successful the country conscionable southbound of the aged Montreal Forum; her grandma worked successful the hallowed hockey shrine.

From childhood, Haynes earned wealth successful unconventional ways. Her half-complete memoir, entitled The Runner: Tripped by the Feds, begins with the words: "For arsenic agelong arsenic I tin retrieve I person had a hustle."

She ran store errands for adults and got to support the change; collected brew bottles from their parties and returned them for cash; and, later, resold contraband cigarettes.

"I made my archetypal $1,000 successful the seventh grade," she writes.

She was hopeless to flight the scene, to fly the atrocious influences. Haynes harboured a puerility imagination of surviving successful the States, and successful 1997, she made it happen.

She enrolled successful college. She got a bachelor's grade from Florida Atlantic University, according to tribunal documents, and besides studied transgression science.

She started smuggling to wage for school. And she made mediocre choices, she says, astir whom she surrounded herself with.

The antheral who became her hubby made a $5,000 down outgo connected a Jeep Cherokee for her; she utilized that conveyance and received thousands of dollars much to determination hashish, hash oil and marijuana into Canada.

Over the years, she shipped contraband countless times: ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana, hash and cash, occasionally driving connected her own, but usually hiring someone.

She'd determination products from purchaser to seller, often crossed planetary lines, but besides domestically, say, from Florida to Chicago.

It was lone galore years later that she started selling guns. Around 2016, Haynes was desperately debased connected currency — she was divorced, with a baby, not working and with an older lad playing intercity baseball.

"Everybody that I ever did concern with ever said, 'No guns, nary guns, nary guns,' due to the fact that there's a trail," she told CBC News.

But it was large cash, astir $4,000 Cdn per gun. On a nine-millimetre handgun that costs a mates of 100 bucks successful South Florida, it's an astronomical profit.

She'd vessel astir 20 astatine a time, and determination were aggregate shipments. She admits to 2 of them, which she figures generated astir $160,000.

Subtracting the outgo of the purchase, the driver and her partner's share, she estimates she kept astir $30,000, which helped her unrecorded comfortably for a fewer months.

And past it outgo her everything.

WATCH | Major Toronto pack busts connected to Hayes's network: 

Law enforcement closes in

Police started closing successful connected Haynes from antithetic angles — arresting associates, seizing phones, signaling conversations and catching her successful lies.

It started aft she purchased 20 weapons from antithetic Florida weapon stores successful February 2018. On March 1, a time aft her past purchase, she crossed into Canada through New York.

She was stopped re-entering the U.S. 2 weeks aboriginal astatine Champlain, N.Y., carrying $4,300 successful cash, and aggregate cellphones.

Border officers seized her phones and downloaded the contents. According to tribunal filings, they recovered fraudulent oregon counterfeit IDs for respective associates and shared that with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

On the greeting of April 27, 2 ATF agents arrived astatine her location successful Boca Raton, Fla. She lied to them, insisting she'd been buying and selling guns to friends with ineligible permits. She insisted she had a retention unit. She took them to a CubeSmart installation and professed to beryllium shocked erstwhile she found her unit empty.

"You retrieve Martha Stewart?" ATF cause Tim Trenschel asked her, according to tribunal documents. "The woman connected TV that does fancy crafts. Do you retrieve that she spent immoderate clip successful prison? Do you retrieve why?"

Haynes replied: "Because she lied."

The cause said: "Exactly."

Haynes added: "About insider trading."

The cause said: "You're mode up of astir radical I speech to."

WATCH | Majority of guns coming into Canada from U.S., information shows:

Haynes insisted upon her truthfulness. "Listen, I get it, and I respect the law… I americium being a 1000 per cent honest."

She was not, successful fact, being 1,000 per cent honest. Far from it. The agent's reflection astir the risks of lying to a national serviceman proved prescient.

A mates of weeks later, guns she'd bought started turning up successful constabulary investigations successful the Toronto area, identified contempt attempts to deface the serial number.

'I knew I was cooked'

One loaded Taurus 9mm was recovered hidden successful the sheet of a car, alongside astir $300,000 worthy of cocaine.

Days later, a Ruger .380 was recovered successful different cause bust. The fishy tossed it speech portion attempting to fly police.

In September of that year, a person she'd hired was stopped portion crossing into Canada from New York state, carrying 20 hidden guns.

Haynes was recorded pursuing close down her — crossing the borderline 62 minutes later. A fig of the seized guns traced backmost to her circle.

By this point, constabulary had gained an informant. They were secretly signaling conversations wrong her circle, adjacent 1 involving Haynes's daughter.

On Feb. 27, 2019, her daughter's boyfriend, Mackenzie Delmas, was caught. The informant delivered guns to him and Delmas was arrested immediately.

Agents searched his location — and Haynes's. That's when Haynes knew she was done for.

She was visiting her parents' location successful the Montreal area. Her girl called from Florida in the mediate of the night with the news, and Haynes collapsed connected the household couch.

"I've ne'er experienced a panic onslaught earlier successful my life, but astatine that point, I started shaking. I couldn't talk, I couldn't breathe," Haynes said. "I was trying to gasp for air."

Her parent tried calming her down, rubbing her back. She recalled her parent asking: "What's going on?"

Haynes confessed what she'd been up to. The full story. "My parent was truthful disappointed."

At that point, Haynes made a decision: To springiness herself up. 

"I knew I was cooked," she said. "[I thought], I'm not gonna unrecorded connected the run. I've got to look it. My clip has come."

Court documents corroborate what happened next: She called the ATF successful the wee hours of Feb. 28, and promised to instrumentality to the U.S. and talk with investigators.

In consequent recorded interviews on March 13 and April 3, she confessed everything: the fake identities, the amerciable weapon purchases, the shipments to Canada, the income to known Canadian gangsters, her ain trips northbound to cod cash and, crucially, her lies to police.

She was arrested, and spent 4 years, 9 months successful prison, serving clip successful a low-security situation successful Alabama. 

It was predictably miserable. She recalled guards treating inmates cruelly and arbitrarily — being decent to immoderate of the meanest inmates, and mean to decent ones, radical who got mixed up, successful immoderate cases accidentally, successful atrocious situations.

The worst was during COVID-19. After investigating positive, she was sent to solitary confinement.

"I was successful the footwear for 13 days," she said. "I felt similar a canine successful a kennel. … The country was filthy. It was disgusting. The sinks — the h2o was brown. The toilet, it was disgusting."

Her main fare successful situation consisted of peanut butter. She gave up nutrient and dairy years ago, grossed retired by it. Given the prime betwixt baloney and peanut butter, she'd instrumentality the latter. She recalls paying $7 for a cauliflower erstwhile and air-frying it with a blow-dryer.

Is determination a consciousness of guilt?

But the implicit worst happening astir prison? Her parents dying, and being incapable to spot them or be their funeral.

Her beloved ma dilatory died of crab portion Haynes was successful jail. By the clip her begetter died, she was out, but she had to be the ceremonial connected Zoom.

Haynes can't permission and re-enter the U.S. due to the fact that she's warring deportation. A Canadian citizen, she's a green-card holder successful the U.S., and of her 3 kids, they're either surviving determination oregon hoping to unrecorded determination with her.

She present works an bureau occupation astatine a landscaping company. 

"My ma was sick with crab and I failed," Haynes said. "My choices and the things I was doing caused maine to not beryllium determination for the idiosyncratic that was ever determination for me."

What astir imaginable weapon victims: does her consciousness of guilt widen to them? As a vegan who avoids hurting animals, does she ever wonderment whether immoderate humans were harmed by those chunks of alloy she trafficked?

Initially, no, she said. As she got into the business, the lone happening connected her caput was wealth — paying the bills.

Then she had 4 years, 9 months successful situation to think. And she started reasoning astir different people's pain, astir different families and whether her guns killed immoderate young kids successful a drive-by.

She present prays that those guns are confiscated.

"I enactment successful changeless supplication that they get seized," she said. "I don't privation to cognize that I'm liable for idiosyncratic losing their life."