How an alleged Russian plot suddenly upended Canada’s air cargo rules

The Labor Day long weekend was anything but peaceful for Bruce Rodgers.

On Friday night his phone started ringing and wouldn’t stop; Dozens of emails and calls asked the same thing: Why did air cargo imports to Canada come to a sudden halt?

As general manager of the Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association (CIFFA), the industry body for the national network of cargo carriers, Rodgers is accustomed to dealing with the fallout from business interruptions, accidents and even natural disasters. But not mysteries.

“We knew absolutely nothing. We didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “The load just wasn’t moving.”

Rodgers and his colleagues soon realized that Transport Canada had introduced radical new rules, without prior warning, on air cargo imports from 55 mostly European countries. As a result, almost nothing was accepted on incoming flights.

The new rules required proof of an “established” business relationship between shippers and recipients with at least six shipments in the past 90 days and documented payment histories for past transactions. This is a high bar that many importers fail to reach, and it continues to cause chaos.

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 due to the Aviation Act they could not disclose this information to the freight forwarders who are responsible for controlling the movement of goods. They only shared it with the airlines,” he said.

In conversations with their U.S. counterparts, who were grappling with the same new demands, Canadian cargo handlers finally realized what was happening: Someone was trying to smuggle incendiary devices onto passenger and cargo jets, increasing the likelihood of a devastating mid-air fire.

Ottawa ‘deeply concerned’ about Russia’s activities

The extent of the threat only became clear in the last two weeks. On October 25, authorities in Poland arrested four men for allegedly planning to ship incendiary bombs hidden inside personal massagers to addresses in Europe and beyond. The shipments are currently linked to two summer fires at cargo warehouses in Germany and the United Kingdom; apparently test runs aimed at targeting trans-Atlantic flights.

The Polish National Prosecutor’s Office claimed that the entire plot was planned by Russian intelligence, stating, “The aim of the group was also to test the transfer channel for such packages that would ultimately be sent to the United States and Canada.” he said.

Canadian officials are still reluctant to discuss the issue. CBC News’ requests to interview officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Public Safety Canada and Transport Canada were denied this week.

However, a spokesperson for Public Safety Canada acknowledged in a brief statement that the federal government was “aware of and deeply concerned by Russia’s intensifying campaign, from cyber incidents to disinformation operations to sabotage activities.” The statement also states that Ottawa conveyed its concerns directly to Russian officials and “made clear that any threat to the security of Canadians is unacceptable.”

A request to meet with Air Canada was also denied, and the airline stated that it has a general policy of not discussing safety issues.

Russia has denied any involvement in planting the incendiary bombs, while President Vladimir Putin called the allegations “complete nonsense.”

But concerns about Russia’s intelligence activities in Western Europe have been growing for almost a year; With dozens of events, train derailments And arsonswith Planned attacks on US military bases and even a Assassination plot against the CEO of a German arms manufacturer They are all linked to Russian agents.

Last month, Bruno Kahl, head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service (BND), Warns about Russia’s dirty tricks campaign The director general of Britain’s MI5, Ken McCallum, was now “at an unprecedented level”. blamed Russia Being “on a constant mission to wreak havoc on British and European streets”.

WATCH | 4 people arrested in Poland for alleged explosives mailing plot:

Poland arrests 4 people in plot to send explosives to Canada and US

Authorities in Poland have arrested four people in connection with a plot to ship explosives to Canada and the United States.

Alleged plot represents a new level of threat

Keir Giles, a Russia expert at Chatham House, an independent policy institute in London, said it was difficult to track the true extent of sabotage because, until recently, many countries were reluctant to disclose details about attempted attacks or damage suffered.

But what is clear is that most of the actions are carried out by proxies (mostly criminal gang members). He was allegedly recruited and paid by Russian intelligence.

“After the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Europe got a bit of a break from these campaigns because the Russian intelligence services that had previously traveled around the continent and carried out these attacks were completely occupied in Ukraine,” Giles said. he said. “What has changed now is that Russia has found a way to spread its attacks even further, with people it can recruit to carry out attacks on Russia’s behalf, without even knowing what or why they are attacking.”

Giles, author of a forthcoming book, Who Will Defend Europe?: An Awakened Russia and the Sleeping ContinentHe said the increase in surveillance and attacks on railways, airports and critical infrastructure in recent months was a worrying trend.

“One of the worst-case scenarios is that this could actually set the stage for a full-scale Russian attack on a NATO member,” Giles said. “Certainly, most of the activity that we’re seeing going on matches what we would expect to see under these circumstances.”

But the alleged conspiracy against passenger and cargo aircraft represents an entirely new level of threat, as evidenced by rapid and far-reaching rule changes regarding cargo.

“We have not seen Russia planning mass casualty events against Western capitals through support for terrorist groups or other means of intervention,” Giles said. “And I think we’ve found it now. This is Russia’s practice of killing large numbers of people in a terrorist attack.”

It is not yet known whether the incendiary devices were actually intended to bring down a plane or merely create fear; At least for the public.

But the effects on business continue to be felt in Canada and abroad. CIFFA’s Rodgers said strict new air transport rules would remain in place for the foreseeable future and the bottleneck on imports would continue.

He’s still upset with Transport Canada’s closed approach to the problem.

“It’s frustrating,” Rodgers said. “We need information to help the government implement better controls, safer controls for the health, safety and security of Canadians. That’s the role we play.”

“Better, better measures could have been implemented,” he said. “My belief is that they don’t really understand the direction of business.”

Jonathon Gatehouse can be reached via email at: [email protected]or via CBC’s digitally encrypted Securedrop system at: https://www.cbc.ca/securedrop/