RCMP Nab Men With Guns, Cash At Border

The men were arrested after they were spotted running on Zero Avenue, in an area along the 49th parallel that's notorious for illegal border crossings.

RCMP said they were tipped around 4 a.m. by the U.S. Border Patrol, which had spotted three men with large backpacks running into Canada from a truck parked on the American side of the border.

Officers immediately set up a perimeter and a police dog tracked the men for 2 1/2 miles through backyards, swamps and dense bush, the RCMP said in a news release.

About an hour later, three men wearing full camouflage clothing were found hiding in a creek at a golf course.

One of the men fled and was caught with the help of the police dog while the other two were arrested without incident, RCMP said.

"If you're asking about terrorism, it's probably not," said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Tim Shields. "It's probably drugs."

Three camouflage backpacks were found, containing 41 handguns including two Tek-9 machine pistols, versions of which can fire like a submachine-gun.

"They were handguns of all types. All of them appeared to be semiautomatic. Many of them were brand new, still in the boxes," RCMP spokesman Constable Tim Shields told reporters.

Police also found between $50,000 and $100,000 in U.S. currency, and one of the men had a small quantity of diamonds.

Police described the men as around 30 years old, with no identification. They are believed to be from the Caribbean or the United States.

Immigration authorities put a hold on them while their identities and nationalities were being verified. The men will face numerous criminal charges, police said.

The RCMP's border enforcement team began an investigation with help from its national weapons enforcement support team, which will be working with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms to determine the origin of the guns.