This is the final installment of a three-part series. The full W5 Avery Haines Investigates documentary ‘The Cocaine Suitcases’ premieres Saturday at 7 p.m. ET on CTV, Crave and our CTV News YouTube channel.
Four Canadians behind bars in Hong Kong say they were tricked into becoming drug mules. A W5 investigation has now tracked down the alleged Canadian recruiters they say helped send them there.
All four detainees, who arrived in Hong Kong on different flights and don’t know each other back in Canada, claim they were lured into transporting suitcases they did not know were loaded with cocaine. W5’s investigation suggests these are not isolated cases. All four describe being drawn in by recruiters in Canada allegedly working for someone they knew only as “Dot,” a shadowy figure whose real identity remains unknown.
Two of them, Jade and Omar, are from the same region of southwestern Ontario. Both have recently celebrated birthdays behind bars, turning 19 and 21.
‘I don’t know what the hell is going on’
By analyzing Jade’s Instagram chats before she boarded a flight to Hong Kong, W5 identified her alleged recruiter as 19-year-old Cameron DeSousa, who offered her a job as an “international courier.”
W5 tracked him to an address in Cambridge, Ont.
When told Jade was facing life in jail, DeSousa appeared stunned.
“Is she? Oh no … I don’t know what the hell’s going on,” he said.
Jade was arrested in Hong Kong after authorities found 25 kilograms of cocaine in the suitcase she had been hired to deliver.
Asked what he believed was inside the bag, DeSousa said: “I thought it was jewelry. I promise I thought it was jewelry. I don’t know, I am literally just a sales rep.”
He added: “I’m just a young kid trying to make a little bit of money.”
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Surveillance video
Another detained Canadian, Omar, is a college student from southwestern Ontario studying international business management. W5 obtained surveillance video from Omar’s home from the day he flew to Hong Kong. The person seen walking out the front door, W5 has learned, is one of the alleged recruiters Omar identified.
That man is 20-year-old Ahmed Dakhil.
Dakhil refused to answer questions about Omar’s case.
Denials from an alleged ringleader
W5 also approached a second man Omar identified from jail in Hong Kong as a local ringleader in the network, Erkam Demir, who Omar claims is in direct contact with “Dot.”
Asked whether he had recruited others, Demir said, “I didn’t recruit anybody.”
When pressed with the question, “What did you think was in the suitcase?” he shut the door.
W5 has uncovered that the two men Omar alleges recruited him are not strangers to police. Both are currently out on bail after being charged in Ottawa with trafficking cocaine and crack in the months following Omar’s arrest in Hong Kong.
Police investigation underway
The W5 investigation raises urgent questions about what is being done to dismantle the larger criminal network deliberately targeting young Canadians and recruiting them into international drug-trafficking operations, only to be left facing some of the harshest drug penalties in the world.
Staff Sgt. Ian Young of Waterloo Regional Police, who heads the drug squad, says they are investigating the wider network that landed Jade and Omar behind bars in Hong Kong.
“How do we move past the drug mule to the drug supplier, right? So those are the steps we’re trying to take, to make sure that we are holding the proper people accountable for the crimes that are being committed,” said Young.
The two other Canadians arrested in Hong Kong are from the Greater Toronto area. Toronto regional police say there is no active investigation into their recruiters.
Part 1: International syndicate lures Canadians as drug mules, four arrested in Hong Kong
Part 2: Canadian teen’s Instagram chats reveal playbook for recruiting drug mules
