A man found with illicit drugs in his luggage upon his return from Mexico was found not guilty of smuggling, despite his admission he had smuggled substances out of Canada in his rectum when he departed from Vancouver. Daniel Jacob Cluett was charged with three counts of importing substances into Canada after border guards found “relatively small” amounts of cocaine, meth, and MDMA in his bag in 2023, according to a recent court decision. He was tried last year in B.C. Supreme Court and acquitted earlier this month. The central issue the judge had to decide was whether Crown had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Cluett had criminal intent because he either knew the drugs were in his luggage or was “reckless as to their presence.” Cluett told the court he was struggling with drug addiction and admitted he took some of the illicit substances found in his luggage with him when he departed for his trip. “He testified that he brought 14 grams of cocaine, some cannabis, 14 grams of MDMA, and about 0.5 grams of fentanyl with him. He testified that all these drugs were placed up his rectum while he travelled to Mexico,” the decision said. This admission alone, Justice Andrew Majawa cautioned, was not enough for the court to draw a conclusion about Cluett’s character or intent. “This evidence of drug use and transport cannot be used to conclude that because Mr. Cluett was prepared to use drugs and to smuggle them into Mexico that he was the sort of person to more likely knowingly import illegal drugs into Canada,” the judge wrote. The court heard that Cluett smoked cannabis, and used some of the MDMA and cocaine with his friend on a beach on their second day in Mexico, and that he consumed the fentanyl that evening. One of the purposes of the trip, Cluett testified, was for him to try to get clean from the opioid, meaning he spent the bulk of his trip “bedridden” from fentanyl withdrawal. After he used all the fentanyl, he spent the next several days experiencing acute withdrawal, the decision said, adding that Cluett said neither he nor his friend consumed any more of the drugs he brought with him because they could not find them. “Mr. Cluett testified that given that he thought he had lost the drugs on the beach on the second day in Mexico, he did not know that there were drugs in his luggage when he returned to Canada,” the decision said. Cluett had never travelled internationally before but told the court he knew it was possible—even probable—he would be searched. “Mr. Cluett testified that he thought that he would definitely be searched because of his criminal record and what he described as the ‘look of him.’ That is why he says he volunteered the information he did to the CBSA such as his ban from casinos in Canada, the time he spent in jail, and the fact that he was a drug user and experiencing fentanyl withdrawal,” Majawa wrote. “He explains that he thought he might as well be completely honest if he was going to be searched anyway.” After his luggage was searched and two baggies were found, Cluett “immediately” admitted they contained cocaine and MDMA and told the border security officer he believed he had lost them. “He also told the (officer) that if he had wanted to smuggle drugs into the country he could have ‘shoved them up (his) ass,’” according to the decision. The baggies contained 8.6 grams of cocaine, and 13.5 grams of MDMA , the court heard. The baggie with the half gram of meth was found in the coin pocket of a pair of jeans, and Cluett told the border guards he was unaware those drugs were there when he left for his trip, according to the decision. “Given all the circumstances of the case, including the way in which the drugs were readily located in his luggage (i.e. not secreted in any way), Mr. Cluett’s knowledge that it was illegal to bring drugs into Canada, the way in which Mr. Cluett smuggled the drugs into Mexico when he left Canada, the statements he made to the CBSA officers before the drugs were discovered, and the statements he made when they were discovered, lead to the reasonable inference that Mr. Cluett did not know the drugs were in his luggage,” Malawa wrote. “I am left with a reasonable doubt as to whether Mr. Cluett had an intention to import the relatively small amounts of controlled substances that were found in his luggage,” the decision concluded.
