A Detroit-based gun smuggling plot unraveled after one of the suspects involved mistook the police for his getaway driver.
Akeem Richards-Crawford, 31, Dwayne Harrison, 34, and Jannai Stewart, 35, citizens of Canada, were charged in an indictment with conspiracy to smuggle and the smuggling of firearms and firearm magazines from the United States to Canada.
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According to the indictment, Richards-Crawford and Harrison traveled from Canada to the United States in October 2023.
Richards-Crawford and/or Harrison then rented a vehicle and a hotel room in the Detroit-Metropolitan area, traveled to Houston, Texas, and Cincinnati, Ohio, to obtain firearms, and then returned to the Eastern District of Michigan to execute their smuggling scheme.
Court documents revealed that early in the morning on Oct. 26, 2023, Richards-Crawford and Harrison drove to the Algonac, Michigan area with a backpack containing 36 firearms.
Harrison then boarded a jet ski on the St. Clair River and traveled to Canada with the firearms.
When Harrison arrived in Canada, he approached an unmarked police vehicle, believing it was there to pick him up.
After realizing his mistake, Harrison dropped the backpack and fled on foot.
Canadian law enforcement officers located the backpack and recovered 36 firearms, each individually wrapped in tube socks.
Officers also encountered Stewart—Harrison’s actual pickup driver nearby after Harrison texted him: “Come get me” and “Cops came.”
Based on the charges in the indictment, each defendant faces up to 10 years in prison for each smuggling count, and up to five years in prison on the conspiracy count, if convicted.
