Fugitive Canadian Drug Trafficker Captured in Colombia

POLICY WIRE — Medellín, Colombia — Arif Jhuman, a Canadian drug trafficker wanted by U.S. federal authorities in connection with a cross-border gun-smuggling conspiracy, has been captured in Medellín, Colombia, according to multiple reports.

Jhuman, who had been on the run for more than three years, was apprehended while exercising at a gym in the city, Colombia’s defence minister stated. Video footage posted online by the minister on Wednesday night showed heavily armed security forces conducting a raid at the facility, with a man later seen being escorted away in handcuffs.

Medellín’s mayor identified the individual as Arif Jhuman, a Canadian citizen also known by the alias Gillani, who’s sought by U.S. federal authorities for a firearm trafficking conspiracy. Colombian police informed reporters that Jhuman was the subject of an Interpol red notice and was captured on Wednesday at a gym located within a high-end shopping mall.

Mayor Fico Gutiérrez commented on the arrest in a post on X, stating, Medellín is not a refuge for criminals. Colombia’s Defence Minister Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez added that Canadian authorities had also been seeking Jhuman for violating his parole.

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) announced in April 2023 that Jhuman, then 36, was wanted on a Canadawide warrant for breach of parole. At the time, he was serving a sentence of nine years and 11 months for drug trafficking charges, and the OPP noted he was known to frequent Toronto. A spokesperson for the OPP didn’t immediately provide comment to CBC News on Thursday morning.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Tampa, Fla., confirmed to CBC News that the man arrested in Colombia is one of five suspects charged in an indictment unsealed last December. This indictment is linked to a cross-border plot to smuggle more than 100 firearms from Florida to Canada between 2023 and 2024.

U.S. Attorney Greg Kehoe previously told CBC News that the firearms, primarily Glock handguns but also high-powered AK-47s and AR-15s, were mainly destined for Ontario. According to a statement released by Kehoe’s office in December, 29 firearms were recovered from unspecified Canadian crime scenes, including three homicides.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives described Jhuman and his co-defendants as part of “a sophisticated transnational criminal organization that until recently, fuelled violent crime in Canada for sheer profit.” Kehoe, the U.S. prosecutor, told CBC News in an interview in December that “there was a homicide in Ontario that was tracked back [to a firearm from Florida] and that’s how we got into taking a look at what the characters down here were doing and how many weapons they were buying.”

It remains unclear when Jhuman fled Canada, but Colombia’s national police indicated he appeared to have entered the country in 2025 using counterfeit identification documents. Colombian authorities stated Jhuman would be detained pending extradition proceedings, though it was not specified whether he would be sent to the U.S. or Canada.