Zimbabwean national caught walking through wilderness across Canada-U.S. border with 1.4 lbs of MDMA
30-year-old spotted by 'detection technology' crossing in January 2024 with shotgun, again in December with drugs
Tatenda Banga likes to go on long canoe trips, international travel, and spending hours hiking in the woods.
We will likely never know how many times the 30-year-old citizen of Zimbabwe took part in those hobbies in 2024 as he crossed from Canada into the United States at Ross Lake southeast of Chilliwack near Manning Park.
But it was 359 days from the day U.S. Border Patrol “detection technology” captured an image of Banga crossing the border at Ross Lake, to the day border patrol agents found him walking on the side of the North Cascades Highway with 1.4 pounds of MDMA (ecstasy).
It was Jan. 3, 2024, when Banga was seen crossing the border with a longarm shotgun and defacing cameras, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office news release issued last week (March 13, 2025).
Almost an entire year passed until Dec. 27, 2024, when Banga was spotted again by surveillance, then later found by officers on Highway 20 with scales, gelatin capsules and about 1.4 pounds of MDMA.
Banga pleaded guilty March 13 in U.S. District Court in Seattle to two federal felonies: being an unlawful alien in possession of firearms, and possession of controlled substances with intent to distribute.
A canoe that U.S. officials found at the Ross Dam in December 2024 and (right) MDMA, gel capsules and a scale found on 30-year-old Tatenda Banga of Zimbabwe who was caught illegally crossing the Canada-U.S. border. (Whatcom County Sheriff's Office photo)
A gun, a canoe, a machete
Personnel from the U.S. Border Patrol and the National Park Service unsuccessfully searched for the person spotted in the surveillance on Jan. 3, 2024.
Agents did find a loaded 12-gauge Winchester shotgun traced to a firearms dealer in Montreal. No fingerprint on record matched those found on the gun.
When the National Park Service alerted Border Patrol to suspected cross-border activity again on Dec. 27, they found a National Park Service canoe near the Ross Dam with a machete and food wrappers inside.
That dam is at the far south end of Ross Lake, approximately 35 kilometres from the border. The damn is accessible by a walking trail less than a kilometre from an access parking lot on Highway 20, also know as the North Cascades Highway.
RCMP cameras provided U.S. officials with an image of someone with a headlamp and backpack moving toward the U.S.-Canada border.
(Someone alert Donald Trump about this co-operation.)
Border agents then spotted Banga walking on the highway, picked him for immigration inspection, and found he had no documents to prove a legal crossing into the U.S. or that he was already legally present in the U.S.
He was found with the MDMA, which has a street value of at least $150,000. His fingerprints matched the shotgun from January, and he admitted crossing illegally with the gun in January.
“Being an unlawful alien in possession of a firearm is punishable by up to 15 years in prison,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “Possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.”
Sentencing is scheduled in front of U.S. District Judge Jamal N. Whitehead on June 12, 2025.
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Paul J. Henderson
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