A Canadian drug trafficker who used a submarine to smuggle drugs into the US managed to escape police custody in May, but cops just caught him floating unconscious in the Detroit River last week.
US police first encountered Glen Richard Mousseau on May 10th, when they stopped and searched a U-Haul truck in St. Clair County, Michigan. Upon searching the vehicle, police found a large plastic package containing over $97,000 in cash. Mousseau claimed he did not know who the money belonged to, but cops took the Canadian citizen into custody for further questioning.
Later that day, after being grilled by Homeland Security agents, Mousseau spilled the beans. The Canadian told agents that he was the head of a smuggling organization that moves drugs and money between the US and Canada. At the time of his arrest, Mousseau was looking for a safe, isolated location on the shores of the Detroit River, which separates Canada from the US.
The smuggler said that once he found an ideal location, he planned to send GPS coordinates to his associate in Canada, who would cross the river in a submarine and collect the cash. Mousseau claimed that his organization had already used the sub to smuggle cash, cocaine, and weed across the border seven times before he got caught. But unbeknownst to Mousseau, US Border Police had already captured the submarine earlier in April.
Police then conducted a search of the smuggler’s hotel room and found five cellphones and numerous Canadian identity documents which had been reported stolen in January. Mousseau was actually banned from entering the US in 1995, so the smuggler may have been using these documents to enter the country illegally.
Mousseau told Homeland Security that he would provide them with details on a massive shipment of meth that was supposed to be delivered to the Metro Detroit area on May 22nd. In exchange for his cooperation, the agents allowed the smuggler to stay at a local hotel during the investigation. But on the day that the meth shipment was expected to arrive, Mousseau checked himself out of the hotel at 3am and vanished.
Law enforcement didn’t see the smuggler again for over two weeks. In the early morning hours of June 5th, Border Patrol agents spotted a small boat crossing the Detroit River from Canada to the US. The agents started pursuing the boat and saw its occupants toss two large bundles overboard. When taking a closer look at the bundles, the agents discovered that an unconscious man was tethered to them.
The Border Patrol scooped up the bundles and the unconscious man and took them to the Gibraltar Border Patrol Station for closer inspection. The man turned out to be Mousseau, and the two bundles were found to contain a total of 265 pounds of weed. Homeland Security agents said that Mousseau could be charged with bulk cash smuggling, possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, and unlawful entry into the US.
Since Canada legalized adult-use cannabis in 2018, US border police have been keeping their eyes open for smugglers trying to bring legal Canadian pot across the border. Just last month, border police busted a Canadian nurse trying to use COVID-19 credentials to smuggle 150 pounds of weed into the US.
