Here's a court case that has all the makings of a heist movie. Interestingly, while the official indictment filed in the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan mentions each of the cars involved by make, it neglects to pay the same attention to detail with regard to the PWC that was used as a getaway vehicle. But I'm getting ahead of myself, and should really, properly begin by telling this story from the beginning.
In an indictment filed in late June 2025, it's alleged that three Canadian citizens (Akeem Richards-Crawford, Dwayne Harrison, and Jannai Stewart) purposely traveled to the US from Canada with the purpose of smuggling 36 firearms and their magazines back into Canada, by way of Michigan. All three men also roped a girlfriend into lending them the assist to get their goods back into their home country, according to the indictment.
The court document spins a tale where one of the three conspirators allegedly flew into Miami, Florida, from Toronto, Ontario, Canada in early October 2023. A few days later, another of the conspirators then allegedly drove with his girlfriend from Canada into Port Huron, Michigan, inside a silver Acura with a license plate from Ontario, Canada.
A few days later, both of the above-mentioned parties were in Michigan, where the guy who flew into Miami rented a hotel room at a Comfort Inn in the town of Warren. The indictment then proceeds to lay out a number of the kind of details you can probably already see projected on an IMAX screen: Google searches for queries like "states with the most heavily enforced traffic laws," a bright red rented Kia Sportage, interstate travel to places including Texas and Ohio to obtain several guns (including multiple Glocks), and even more Google searches for how border crossing exams work. And then a white Subaru Forester enters the story from the Canadian side of the border.
Seriously, you couldn't make these little details up. Delving deeper into the document, there's also "a large duffel bag," hotel surveillance video, a taxidermy shop (!), a grocery store, and last (but certainly not least), an attempted flight in all-black clothing across the St. Clair River on a PWC.
The indictment, incidentally, refers to this vehicle as a "jet ski," but at no point does it specifically mention the make of the PWC. As you may or may not be aware, the term "jet ski" is officially trademarked by Kawasaki, and it's not clear whether it was, in fact, a Kawasaki vehicle used in this smuggling attempt. After all, this is the Canadian border we're talking about, so maybe it was a Sea-Doo. My point is, the court document does not make this point clear.
An indictment is only one step in the federal court process, and it's not clear how this case will turn out. It's not every day that a court document reads like someone really needs to get it into the hands of the Coen Brothers, like, yesterday, but this is most certainly one of those occasions.
