The long Labor Day weekend was anything but easy for Bruce Rodgers.
His cell phone started ringing Friday night and wouldn’t stop, with dozens of emails and phone calls all asking the same question. “Why did air cargo imports to Canada suddenly stop?”
As executive director of the Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association (CIFFA), the trade association for a national network of freight forwarders, Mr. Rogers is accustomed to dealing with the effects of industrial accidents, accidents and even natural disasters. But it’s not a mystery.
“We didn’t know anything at all. We didn’t know what happened,” he said. “The cargo wasn’t moving.”
Mr. Rogers and his colleagues soon discovered that, without prior warning, Transport Canada had imposed radical new rules on air cargo imports from 55 countries, primarily in Europe. As a result, boarding on arriving flights has become almost inadmissible.
The new rules required proof of an “established” business relationship between shippers and consignees with at least six shipments in the past 90 days, as well as documentation of payment history for past transactions. This is a high bar that many importers have failed to reach and continues to cause confusion.
But the strangest thing for Rodgers was that no one could explain why.
“We tried to obtain information directly from Transport Canada. They claimed that because of aviation laws, they could not disclose this information to the carriers responsible for managing the movement of goods. They only shared it with Transport Canada,” he said.
Canadian freight forwarders finally understood what was happening through conversations with US freight forwarders who were grappling with the same new requirements. It was believed that someone was trying to smuggle incendiary devices onto passenger and cargo jets, raising the possibility of a catastrophic mid-air fire.
Ottawa ‘deeply concerned’ about Russian activities
The scope of the threat has only become clear over the past two weeks. On October 25, Polish authorities arrested four people on suspicion of planning to send incendiary devices hidden in personal massagers to addresses in and outside Europe. These shipments are now believed to be linked to two summer fires in cargo warehouses in Germany and the United Kingdom. It appears to be a test operation targeting transatlantic flights.
Poland’s State Prosecutor’s Office said: “The group’s aim was also to test the route of the parcels that were ultimately destined for the United States and Canada,” adding that the entire plot was orchestrated by Russian intelligence. It is said that
Canadian authorities remain reluctant to discuss the issue. All requests for interviews by CBC News this week with officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency, Public Safety Canada and Transport Canada were declined.
But a spokesperson for Public Safety Canada issued a short statement saying the federal government is “aware of and deeply concerned about the escalation of Russian activity, from cyber incidents and disinformation operations to sabotage.” I admitted it. The statement also said Ottawa had raised concerns directly with Russian authorities and “made it clear that any threat to the safety and security of Canadians is unacceptable.”
A request for an interview with Air Canada was also declined, with the airline saying it has a general policy not to discuss security issues.
Russia has denied any involvement in planting the incendiary devices, and President Vladimir Putin called the allegations “complete nonsense.”
But concerns about Russian intelligence operations across Western Europe have been simmering for almost a year. train derailment and arsonto Planned attack on US military bases And even more Planned to assassinate the CEO of a German weapons manufacturing company. All have ties to Russian agents.
Last month, Bruno Karl, head of Germany’s Foreign Intelligence Service (BND), said: warned about Russia’s dirty tricks campaign British MI5 chief Ken McCallum said the current situation was “at a level we have never seen before”. blame russia About being on an “ongoing mission to cause mayhem on the streets of Britain and Europe”.
Polish authorities have arrested four people on suspicion of planning to mail explosives to Canada and the United States.
Alleged conspiracy represents a new level of threat
Keir Giles, a Russia expert at Chatham House, an independent policy institute in London, said that until recently many countries had been reluctant to reveal details of the attempt or the damage, making it difficult to track the true extent of the sabotage. said it was difficult.
What is clear, however, is that many of the actors are agents, often members of criminal organizations. Allegedly recruited and paid by Russian intelligence services.
“After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Europe took a bit of a break from these operations because the Russian intelligence services that were roaming the continent carrying out these attacks were completely occupied in mainland Ukraine. ” said Giles. “What has changed now is that Russia has found a way to further expand its attacks. It can recruit people to carry out attacks on Russia’s behalf, and it knows what they are attacking and why they are attacking them. I don’t necessarily know.”
Giles is the author of a forthcoming book. Who will protect Europe?: Awakening Russia and a sleeping continentsaid the increase in surveillance and attacks on railways, airports and critical infrastructure over the past few months is a worrying trend.
“One of the worst-case scenarios is that Russia may actually be preparing a full-scale attack on a NATO member state,” Giles said. “Certainly, a lot of the activity that we have going on right now is consistent with what we would expect in that situation.”
But allegations of conspiracies against passenger and cargo planes pose a whole new level of threat, as evidenced by swift and widespread regulation changes for cargo.
Giles said: “I have never seen Russia planning a mass casualty attack on a Western capital, either by sponsoring a terrorist group or through some other means of intervention.” ” he said. “And now I think we’ve found it. This is Russia training to kill large numbers of people in terrorist attacks.”
It remains unclear, at least to the public, whether the incendiary device was intended to actually bring down the plane or simply to induce fear.
However, the impact on trade within and outside of Canada continues to be felt. CIFFA’s Mr Rogers said strict new air transport rules would remain in place for some time, as would import bottlenecks.
He still resents Transport Canada’s reticence on the issue.
“It’s frustrating,” Rogers said. “We need information to help governments put better controls in place, safer controls for the health, safety and security of Canadians. That’s our role.”
“Better, better measures could have been implemented,” he said. “In my opinion, they don’t really understand how trade works.”
Jonathon Gatehouse can be contacted at: jonathon.gatehouse@cbc.caor via CBC’s digitally encrypted Securedrop system. https://www.cbc.ca/securedrop/
