In 2024, the RCMP’s Saskatchewan Enforcement Response Teams investigated 75 interprovincial trafficking files, relating to firearms, drugs, and humans.

SERT’s Senior Investigative Officer Jeff Smoliak says “criminals don’t respect jurisdictional boundaries,” hence why the teams need to work closely with policing partners across the country to get to the bottom of these complex files.

For example, last October, Saskatoon RCMP were called to a business in Dundurn for the report of a kidnapping. Officers arrived to find a woman from Ontario being held against her will.

An investigation into human trafficking revealed that she was forcibly taken from Toronto, and that instances of human trafficking had occurred in numerous locations in Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.

A man from Quebec was arrested and faced several charges, including trafficking in persons and sexual assault with and without a weapon.