Most Wanted - The Hunt for Kamar Cunningham | 13
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It was only a matter of time until Amanda's whole world came tumbling down. You're not going to believe this. Scamanda. New episodes Thursday nights on ABC and stream on Hulu. Hey, it's Nancy Hixt, reporter and host of Crime Beat. I hope you're enjoying Crime Beat Most Wanted. I'm working on so many intriguing stories, including a case that was a true whodunit that took place in the popular resort town of Banff.

I'll share how the case went cold despite tireless efforts to track the killer. This story, and so many others, will be available starting mid-February of 2025. I hope you'll join me then for a brand new season of Crime Beat. A listener's note. The following episode contains coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature, and may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

Police are on the hunt for a gun runner convicted of trafficking illegal firearms that they say were intended for a dangerous street gang. I'm confident that Project Patton will result in the incarceration of numerous violent gang members and that it has a direct and positive impact on community safety. Detectives discover one of the biggest shipments of illegal guns was about to cross the border and take down a trafficker at the heart of an international smuggling ring.

I can advise that 60 of the handguns that you see before you today were obtained in a single seizure. From an individual who was intending on delivering them to high-ranking individuals within the Five Point Generals hierarchy, the guns were destined to become crime guns in Toronto and the GTA.

I'm Tracy Tong, and this is Crime Beat Most Wanted, a podcast that takes you inside open investigations of some of Canada's most serious crimes in the hopes your tips lead police to justice. Today, I'm joined by Karen Lieberman to share the story of a man convicted of his crimes. He skipped his sentencing hearing, and police have not seen him for years. This is The Hunt for Kamar Cunningham.

Weston Road and Lawrence Avenue in Toronto's West End is home to a large park with baseball diamonds, tennis and basketball courts, a pool and a splash pad for children to play. But the neighborhood along the east bank of the Humber River is also home to a dangerous street gang. The Five Point Generals or the 5PG.

is composed of people who were born and raised in that area and have now taken up crime as a way to make a living. They were involved with several crimes, including homicides, shootings, firearm trafficking, drug trafficking. That's Detective Sergeant Andrew Steinwall from the Toronto Police Fugitive Squad.

In a crime group like this, there are people who have specific roles, from the people who deal to the street-level dealers, to the people who bring the drugs into the community, to the people who are responsible for getting firearms to arm the gang members to defend themselves from rival gangs. Those turf wars ravage communities and kill innocents.

Like a shooting on Boxing Day in 2005 that left 15-year-old Jane Creba dead while she was out shopping with her mother and sister. "Creba was hit by a hail of bullets, what appears now to have been a gang gunfight." And a suspected gang shootout in 2007 that led to the death of 11-year-old Ephraim Brown at his cousin's 18th birthday party.

Typical with gangs, they want to control that area. They want to be the only ones in there who are supplying drugs to people in the area. So they live in the community, but they also prey on the community. Detective Sergeant Travis Clark is with the Toronto Police Major Project Section. The Five Point Generals are viewed as one of the biggest threats in the GTA at that time. In September 2017, Toronto Police set out to dismantle the Five Point Generals.

I'm confident that Project Patton will result in the incarceration of numerous violent gang members and that it has a direct and positive impact on community safety. Project Patton becomes one of the biggest investigations, netting one of the largest seizures of illegal firearms in Toronto police history. But it begins by seeking consent from a judge to listen in.

A Part 6 investigation is kind of what we view as the peak of investigations. Part 6 is a section of the criminal code that dictates how and what circumstances we, the police, are able to intercept members of the public. With the five-point generals, we could see that their criminality had risen. And once intelligence started looking into them, identifying associates, identifying people at the core of the group, then you start looking at those people specifically.

In a covert location, Detective Travis Clark listens in. I was one of the lead investigators in the wire room. Our job in the wire room was to direct surveillance, listen to intercepts as they come in. Yo, yeah, where's the... Almost done.

and we started intercepting communications to certain individuals. One of them was Bill Allison. Bill Allison was an affiliate of many of these Five Point generals. He was speaking to a male in Florida. He was referring to his bigs. This group spoke a patois. It was a very hard patois, very difficult to even understand.

There was coded language used. There's different terms for guns, for drugs, for money. They listen to a call from a car. A meeting is going down between Allison and an unknown male. All right, cool.

So I contacted Detective Steinwall and said, "We need to see this meet. We need to identify who Mr. Allison is meeting with and advise them that we believe this transaction is going to be down at the shops of Don Mills."

So our surveillance team sets up in that area and we're waiting for somebody and we're not sure who it is. So we race to this area and we actually find them in the parking lot. They acknowledge each other and then they follow each other in tandem through the lights and down the Donway and both vehicles then turn down this driveway. Next to these high-rise condos. Next to these high-rise condos and one vehicle in front of the other.

Both get out, have a brief conversation, and the male goes to the trunk of his minivan and takes out a package. He gives it to Bill Allison, he puts it in his vehicle, and I observe all of that. Detectives follow a man not known to them before. He pulls into his driveway, and from his truck he pulls out several boxes of mangoes and puts them in his garage.

At that point is how we identified Harris Poyser in this criminal organization. They later hear what was in that package. What we believe and know now is that there was a firearm transaction between the shops at Don Mills.

As the investigation into this group gathers steam, we realize that these firearms are coming from the United States. They're going to come through the Cornwall border and they're going to go directly to the streets of Toronto into the hands of criminals. Making big financial decisions is never easy. Whether you're buying a home, renewing your insurance or collecting your pension, there are so many things you need to think about.

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There's been an uptick in violence in Toronto's West End, and police are zeroing in on the activities of a violent street gang they believe is responsible. As they use wiretaps and surveillance to track the main players, they learn of a big shipment coming. Could be drugs, but they're almost certain it's firearms.

It's what he was doing outside business hours that concerned police.

So we went to a Superior Court justice and provided the information and the evidence we had in relation to Harris Poyser. A judge agreed, and once we started listening to Harris Poyser, it opened up the big picture. Good morning, sir. Good morning, sir. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm good. We're all about charity. The money we write, you know. And at that point then, it was almost like a floodgate, a floodgate of calls. A surveillance team follows Harris Poyser,

So in May of 2018, information was given to us from the wire room that Harris Poyser was meeting two of his associates in this parking lot. And they met roughly in this area here. Harris Poyser parked his vehicle in this spot and that's the first time we laid eyes on Kamar Cunningham and his associate Kareem Lewis. We didn't see a whole lot in Kamar Cunningham other than he was involved in this network with Poyser.

That day, later, Harris Poyser went on his way and Kamar Cunningham and Kareem Lewis drove to Cornwall. A border town in eastern Ontario, around 100 kilometres from the capital, Ottawa. They went to a house on Oliver and 515 Oliver Lane in Cornwall. And not much on the lines about any pickups, any guns, any drugs coming back or was it money going to the person at Cornwall.

They pulled on a street where we couldn't get any observations and then they drove back directly on the highway. What we didn't realize at that time, there was an exchange of guns that was coming back. The very next day, Kamar Cunningham met Harris Poyser again in this lot, and went closer towards this world's jail.

And although information was coming from the wire room that there was possibly a firearm transaction, we were unable to see anything change hands. Kumar Cunningham was then followed back to Mississauga where he was seen carrying a bag from his vehicle

and meeting people in and around his condo. A call tells them what they missed. They discussed how the guns weren't good guns. Some of them were rusted, some were broken. It's a load.

It wasn't until later that Intercepts told us that 30 firearms exchanged hands that day. Steve Watts is the superintendent of organized crime enforcement for Toronto Police. Firearms are purchased legally in the U.S. and then they're obviously transported

illegally and across the border as illicit firearms onto Canadian soil and specifically into the GTA. With Mr. Cunningham or any other individual, be it through their criminal contacts, through their street gang contacts, there are certain people that are moving weapons and firearms. How big of a problem is this? The public is aware of the firearm violence across Canada. It's a significant issue and it comes down to the access and

The usage, wherever your border point, crossing point, whether it be Detroit or Cornwall, as easy as you can drive into a location, into a safe house or into a location, those guns are being moved. Obviously for a fee, for a price, but they're being moved very quickly. - The 30 guns were no exception, but a lack of certainty during surveillance meant the team was faced with a choice and the wrong one could have blown the entire operation.

See, at that point, we can take them down, get those 30 guns. We weren't in that position. It's like a chess game. If we take that shot and arrest them at that moment and there's no guns there, what are we left with? We were frustrated. We were a bit upset. But it wasn't long after that that we started to receive information that there would be a larger load coming in from Cornwall. What do you mean? What do you mean? How much did we get? 60, right?

On May 23rd, there was calls coming that there was something coming across the border, that Biggs had set it up down there. I don't know yet. I think, yeah. I think, yeah. They talked 60 and 100. You're still thinking kilos of coke. So on that date, was it the guns coming across or was it drugs coming across? I assemble our surveillance team and we follow Harris Poyser to Cornwall. We set up observations there and we're waiting.

We're waiting to see what Travis is hearing in the wire room. At one point, Harris Poyser says very quickly at the end of the conversation, he says to Big, how are they wrapped? Are they wrapped nicely? No, man, they must catch up. They're wrapped.

His response to that was, "No, no, they're all packaged very softly so they don't scratch." At that point, I realized it was guns and not drugs. No one cares about scratching kilos of cocaine. I've never heard that term. But scratching new guns? Do you value them? So at that point, I was confident there was 60 guns.

Harris Poyser was observed to go to 515 Oliver Lane. Where he backs into a driveway but doesn't get out of the car. I receive information from another officer that he observes two very large bags going into the trunk of Harris Poyser's car.

I relay that information to Travis Clark and he corroborates the information that he's receiving on the wiretap. He said they were very heavy bags, just two of them that went into Mr. Poyser's vehicle. And from there, Travis Clark is confident enough to tell us to stop the vehicle, arrest Poyser for possession of firearm and seize what is in the trunk. He had a full grasp of the moment as well as I did and the chance we're about to take.

It's the riskiest part of the operation, and it's not lost on Detective Clark. When I say that word, takedown, I'm putting one of my best friends, Andrew Steinwall, in a precarious position, but I'm asking him to do his job. They have to take this individual in custody. They have a natural fight-or-flight mentality, like most humans do.

And most of them were armed. It's a very dangerous situation to be in. Then I hung up the phone and I sat and waited. And at that point, it was just quiet. It was quiet. Adrenaline is pumping at this time. We're hoping that, you know, we are right. We're hoping that what we are seeing off firearms in there, and we're hoping that the information that Travis Clark received was accurate. We do a high-risk vehicle stop of a vehicle. Paris Poiser is taken out without any incident.

I go directly to the trunk, I open the trunk and there's two large duvet packages and inside each duvet is 30 semi-automatic handguns, all different colours, all different sizes and 30 in each bag. Kind of the coup de grace for Detective Steinwall and I in our 24 years to make, at the time was the biggest firearm seizure in the history of the Toronto Police.

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from an individual who was intending on delivering them to high-ranking individuals within the Five Point Generals hierarchy. The guns were destined to become crime guns in Toronto and the GTA.

Police arrest one of the men who they say allegedly put guns into hands.

Kamar Cunningham. Mr. Cunningham played a significant role, a primary role on the Canadian side for this. He was responsible for the 60 brought in at Cornwall. Also there was an additional 30 that had come in prior. It's estimated that these 60 guns would generate profits of around $200,000. They also arrest 75 others for more than 1,000 combined offenses.

In partnership with the ATF, investigators track back exactly where and when they were bought from a gun show in Orlando, Florida. They said there's something called a time to crime, that when that gun is illegally purchased for the purpose of trafficking it and putting it into the hands of a criminal, who's going to use that gun?

It was, I believe it was four days. So they had to purchase those guns down in Florida, have a driver lined up, get them to the border, have someone take that chance going across the border, get into the hands of Poyser. And Poyser brings it back and distributes it to Kumar Cunningham, another individual who would distribute these guns into the hands of criminals. We are the largest undefended border, right? We know that.

And that comes with huge advantages, comes with huge privilege, and it also comes with a downside. There are certain states in the United States that are prevalent with the issue of straw purchases and export. And for Eastern Canada, it's primarily what they call the iron pipeline. It is I-75. So if you look at the states that I-75 goes through, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, down into Florida,

Superintendent Steve Watts with the Toronto Police Organized Crime Enforcement Unit said they discovered more were on the way. There was 40 that were held back because the American suppliers obviously understood that there was an issue and that their contacts had been arrested. They would have found that out very quickly.

Sixty-year-old fruit salesman Harris Poyser pled guilty to firearms importation and trafficking. He was sentenced to 15 years behind bars. Bill Allison was convicted of firearms trafficking and sentenced to six years. Kamar Cunningham was convicted of firearms trafficking, but he was not there to hear that verdict.

We arrested him, I believe it was June 21st, as he returned to Canada from Jamaica. He was given an ankle monitor bracelet. I believe he cut that bracelet off and went missing again. He was in breach of his conditions, I believe, a second time. Released a second time. He was put before the courts again and released a third time.

And that third time, he was convicted in absentia of participating in an act of criminal organization of firearms trafficking and sentenced to nine years. And he hasn't been seen since that last court appearance. They're hoping that making him one of Canada's most wanted will lead to his capture. Kamar Cunningham may or may not be pulling the trigger, but he is definitely putting the firearms in the hands of people who would pull the trigger.

How important is apprehending Kamar Cunningham? Extremely important for the safety of the citizens of Toronto. Police are on the lookout for Kamar Cunningham, who they say has been evading arrest for years. He was convicted for his involvement in an organization that trafficked guns, but has not served his sentence because he can't be found. They want you to be on the lookout and to call in tips that will help bring him in.

He was last seen in Toronto, but he may be on the move. He's 6'1" or 185 cm and weighs around 160 pounds or 73 kg.

He has brown eyes and black hair and has a full-sleeve tattoo on his right arm. If you have any information, Crime Stoppers is waiting for your anonymous call at 1-800-222-TIPS. You can also submit a tip online. We'll include this information in our show notes. You can also watch our docuseries, Crime Beat Most Wanted, on YouTube, where you can see the suspects still at large.

Thank you for listening. Crime Beat Most Wanted is hosted by me, Tracy Tong. Reporting in this episode is by Karen Lieberman. Adapted to podcast by our senior producer, Dila Velazquez. With help from our associate producer, Elizabeth Sargent. Audio and sound design by Rob Johnson. We would love to have you tell a friend about this podcast. And if you can please consider rating and reviewing Crime Beat Most Wanted on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

Thank you for joining us on Crime Beat Most Wanted.

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