A reward of up to $50,000 has been posted for information leading to the arrest of a convicted gun trafficker who police say has been at-large for two years after repeatedly breaching bail conditions and failing to show up for his sentencing hearing.
Police say Kamar Cunningham was apprehended in 2018 as part of Project Patton, a Toronto police investigation that led to the arrest of 75 suspects who were charged with approximately 1,000 gun, drug, and gang-related offences.
The $50,000 reward is being offered by Canada’s BOLO program.
“His involvement was in a criminal organization that was responsible for trafficking a significant amount of firearms over the U.S.-Canadian border,” Supt. Steve Watts, of the Toronto Police Service’s organized crime enforcement unit, told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday.
“He has been released on bail three times. Each time he has violated his release conditions before being arrested and released on bail again. On May 4, 2021, Cunningham was sentenced in absentia to nine years in custody. Not surprisingly, he did not appear once again for his sentencing hearing.”
A Canada-wide warrant was subsequently issued for Cunningham’s arrest.
Watts said the 39-year-old is six-foot-one, about 160 pounds, and has brown eyes, black hair, and a full sleeve tattoo on his right arm.
“Cunningham has strong family and criminal ties in the Greater Toronto Area. We believe he is still operating within the GTA community, likely under an assumed identity, and he absolutely poses a threat to public safety,” Watts said.
“Mr. Cunningham was born in Jamaica and still has ties to that country as well.”
Max Langlois, the director of BOLO (Be on the Lookout), told reporters at Tuesday’s news conference that this is the first time the program has featured a non-homicide case in the Toronto area.
“Our work is naturally focused on homicide cases but by no means are homicide cases the only ones deserving of our attention,” he said.
“Gun violence has reached an unprecedented and unacceptable level in our country. At the root of this phenomenon is the guns themselves and at the root of these guns are unscrupulous individuals like Kamar Cunningham. Acting with the most blatant disregard for human life, individuals like Mr. Cunningham bring these deadly weapons into our communities, their communities.”
Cunningham is currently listed as Number 4 on BOLO’s list of Top 25 most wanted.
Langlois said this is also the first time a convicted criminal has been at the centre of a BOLO case in Toronto.
“In six years of running BOLO, I have never heard such a lax application of bail by our courts,” he added.
“We are talking here about someone who had repeatedly shown a disregard for the rule of law, who had broken his bail conditions time and again, who was convicted of trafficking firearms and who, despite all of this, was allowed to remain in the community.”
Police are urging anyone with information about Cunningham’s whereabouts to contact police or Crime Stoppers anonymously. The reward, Langlois said, expires in December.
