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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Hampshire says it has dismantled an international trafficking ring that allegedly smuggled dozens of firearms from New Hampshire into Canada via Indigenous reserves that straddle the border.
Several of the illegal weapons were later recovered at violent crime scenes linked to Canadian organized crime, said U.S. Attorney for the District of New Hampshire Erin Creegan.
Court documents say that members of the trafficking network recruited straw purchasers in New Hampshire and Vermont to illegally acquire firearms for federally licensed firearms dealers on behalf of others.
Federal charges have been laid against eight people for their alleged role in the conspiracy. Five others entered guilty pleas.
At a news conference in Concord, N.H. on Thursday, Creegan said 51 firearms were allegedly trafficked through the pipeline.
Several of those firearms, she said, were later recovered at Canadian crime scenes, including during a kidnapping investigation in Montreal and other violent crime investigations in Quebec.
“If you lie on the forms and purchase firearms on behalf of another person, you are not only committing a federal crime yourself, you are potentially placing weapons in the hands of violent criminals,” Creegan said.
Trafficked gun found at Montreal crime scene
The criminal organization allegedly smuggled firearms through Kanien’kehá:ka reserves into Canada.
The investigation is being led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Sûreté du Québec.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) contributed to the investigation by sharing information and expertise in accordance to legal requirements, spokesperson Luke Reimer said in an email on Thursday.
He noted that the CBSA allocates resources to the Centre québécois de dépistage des armes à feu (CQDAAF) and l’Équipe intégrée de lutte contre le trafic d’armes à feu (EILTA), who were also involved in the investigation.
“Identifying illicit movements and intercepting high-risk goods, such as firearms, firearm parts, and ammunition, are priorities for the CBSA in its enforcement efforts,” Reimer wrote.
Justin Jackson, Melissa Longe, Dustin Tuttle, Caleb Wilcott and Doug Mulligan have pleaded guilty for their participation in the scheme. Their sentencing dates are scheduled between June and August.
The charge of conspiracy to straw purchase firearms provides a maximum prison term of 25 years, a maximum fine of $250,000, and not more than five years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Hampshire.
Jackson — a Vermont man identified in court documents as the leader of the straw purchasers —admitted, according to his plea agreement, that he trafficked firearms to Indigenous reserves near the New York border.
Some of the allegedly trafficked firearms were recovered “in the hands of members or suspected members of organized crime” at various crime scenes in Canada.
Court documents show that on or about Aug. 30, 2024, Montreal police found a Glock Pistol GMBH Model 26 at a crime scene in the city as part of a search warrant executed at a residence linked to a kidnapping investigation.
Cash for weapons
Jackson allegedly solicited Longe and Tuttle to straw purchase firearms since he could not legally purchase them after being “convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,” court documents show.
He said members from Akwesasne in New York would visit his and his co-conspirators’ houses with cash to buy the weapons.
One of the reserve members, who went by the moniker “Mike Jones”, allegedly went to Jackson’s residence in Vermont with about $5,000 US around April 2024 and asked him to buy “as many firearms as he could,” according to the court documents.
Sometimes, Jackson said, the members would scope out gun stores in advance to see their inventory and then tell Jackson, Longe and Tuttle which firearms they wanted.
Others accused of being involved in the scheme include Io-Rateka Swamp, Jonathan Hart, Conrad Oakes, Tayson Terrance, Ranonkwatseronhawi Gibson, Montana Cook, Blade Oakes and Nash Oakes — all of whom are residents of Akwesasne.
They face charges of conspiracy to straw purchase and conspiracy to traffic firearms after allegedly conspiring with Jackson, Longe and Truttle between 2021 and 2024.
Gibson, Terrance, Conrad Oakes and Cook were taken into federal custody on May 12 as part of an ATF-led, multi-agency takedown operation. The others are currently fugitives.
