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Windsor border and gun violence (continued)thing. The area is unique in Canada in having such immediate access to a major American city offering a wide variety of shopping, culture and sports entertainment. But it’s a double-edged reality. The border – especially one as busy as Windsor-Detroit – unfortunately is the conduit for some pretty nasty smuggling. One of the worst examples of this came out of a Chicago courtroom this week in the case of a notorious Illinois gun dealer. Ugur Yildiz was sentenced to 90 months and ordered to pay $10,000 for gun trafficking. Evidence showed that quite a few of the firearms ended up in Canada. In 2006 Yildiz smuggled more than 200 guns across the Windsor border. According to an investigation by National Post he drove over the bridge and stopped at a nearby fast food restaurant. He met a man and they went to a strip club. The man in turned introduced Yildiz to a Huy “Mikey” Ta who was the target of a police investigation into Asian criminal gangs. The firearms eventually ended up at crime scenes across Ontario. Some were seized from members of an inner city Toronto gang. Toronto police recovered 23 weapons, the OPP 19. Police in Guelph, Waterloo, Barrie and Sudbury also found guns. A weapon ended up in Ottawa, used in the murder of a man who died of his wounds a year ago today. It’s difficult to think that the border we cross innocently for school or work, to visit friends and family, can be the connection for such deadly cargo. And of course the case demonstrates that no matter how tough some Canadians think our gun laws are they amount to nothing in the face of easy smuggling.WindsorOntarioNews.com Dec 18, 2009
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