This story is the first in a two-part series on the smuggled Glock 19 handgun used to kill OPP Const. Greg Pierzchala and how cheap, legally purchased U.S. weapons are fuelling a Canadian epidemic.
PHOENIX, Ariz.鈥擟ynthia Solano never met Greg Pierzchala, the rookie cop killed on the side of a rural Ontario crossroads.
She wasn鈥檛 there more than two years ago when a young man used the gun concealed in his hoodie to fire six bullets into the officer, whose anguished cries were recorded by his body-worn camera as he fell to the ground.聽
But Solano has a link to the horrific crime, for which two people .
The Glock 19 used to take the 28-year-old constable鈥檚 life was one of Solano鈥檚 guns 鈥 among the hundreds she helped smuggle to the Canada-U. S. border.
As Pierzchala worked hard to pass his probation as an Ontario Provincial Police officer in 2022, Solano, an Arizona mother of four, was plunging into the dangerous world of firearms trafficking.
Handgun serial No. BBF797US travelled more than 3,000 kilometres before cutting short Pierzchala鈥檚 life on the same day he鈥檇 become a full-fledged OPP officer.
OPP officer Greg Pierzchala, left, with Arizona resident Cynthia Solano, who trafficked the Glock handgun used in his 2022 murder.聽
This is the story of the gun that killed a cop and of the woman who brought it to Canada. It underscores the seemingly intractable problem of gun smuggling across the U.S.-Canada border, and its deadly consequences. At the same time, it reveals something else: how outwardly ordinary people can be drawn into smuggling operations for money or, perhaps as Solano has told it in a series of interviews with the Star over the past two years, for love.聽
A staggering number of guns are coming across the Canada-U. S. border each year. The consequences in Canadian cities are devastating.
In 2023, police in Ontario submitted nearly 3,000 guns 鈥 all seized in criminal investigations 鈥 to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing.
Ninety per cent were sourced back to the United States. Forty-three were linked to Ontario homicides in that year alone.
The details come from a confidential report, obtained by the Star and prepared by the Firearms Analysis and Tracing Enforcement program, established by the Criminal Intelligence Service of Ontario.
How are all these guns coming into Canada?
While U.S. President Donald Trump鈥檚 recent threats have shone a light on U.S.-Canada border security, concerns about human trafficking, illicit drugs and other contraband crossing the border have been growing for years. Vast stretches along the world鈥檚 longest border are not heavily patrolled, and U.S.-Canadian border crossings and ports of entry are severely understaffed, in the view of the border guards鈥 union.
The Customs and Immigration union estimates one per cent of all goods are searched before coming into Canada, including a small proportion of commercial trucks for fear of backing up traffic.
Express customs-clearance schemes, such as ArriveCan, also open up potential smuggling opportunities, while technology allows the easy transfer of money like never before.
Which is how, sometime in the summer of 2022, Glock handgun No. BBF797US slipped through undetected, most likely in a truck across the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, North America鈥檚 largest international border crossing.
But that鈥檚 not where the tale of Cynthia Solano and her guns begins.
Who is Cynthia Solano?
In her own words 鈥 if you believe them 鈥 Cynthia Solano was an accidental gun smuggler.
鈥淗ow does a good citizen, who had never done anything wrong in her life 鈥 boom, all of a sudden become a criminal,鈥 she asked in a WhatsApp message, one of scores of text messages, emails and conversations with the Star since her arrest on U.S. federal charges. In these conversations, Solano has answered questions about her background and explained why she started smuggling firearms into Canada 鈥 the reason she is now serving a seven-year prison sentence.
Standing five-foot-two, with brown eyes and black hair, Solano has a boisterous laugh, which often erupts when poking fun at herself. She adores her children, quotes Scripture and peppers her rapid-fire delivery with references to God.
She鈥檚 rarely at a loss for words, sharing views on a range of subjects from the futility of the war on drugs 鈥 and firearms smuggling, to how the U.S. authorities only went after her 鈥渂ecause they didn鈥檛 get their cut of the pie.鈥
At times, she has downplayed her role in the operation, insisting she wasn鈥檛 making any money. Other times, she鈥檚 boasted.
鈥淚 was responsible, respectable, and very, very business-oriented, so I blew up very fast,鈥 she wrote in one email to the Star.
鈥淓verything was prepaid and I never delivered anything that wasn鈥檛 already sold,鈥 she continued on another occasion, describing also how she could secure 鈥渆xotics鈥 for delivery upon request.聽
Solano, who boasted to the Star about her prowess as a smuggler.
Her tattoos, Mexican heritage and fluency in Spanish lent an air of authenticity in negotiations, she says. Nor was she intimidated by the characters in this unsavoury world. 鈥淚n no way, shape or form was I gonna let a man tell me what the f—- to do.鈥
According to her words and U.S. court documents, Solano transported hundreds of weapons purchased from private sellers in Arizona to the Canadian border in her blue Chevrolet Tahoe, load after load, over a 10-month period in 2022. Her co-conspirators in Canada would then transfer money back to her bank account; she used it to purchase more guns.
Born in Laredo, Texas, Solano was raised by a single, abusive, alcoholic mother. (Before her sentencing hearing in Phoenix on Jan. 27, a private investigator in Arizona prepared a report about Solano鈥檚 background based on interviews with her stepfather and a longtime neighbour. The level of abuse was 鈥渢ragically sad,鈥 the P.I., Rennee DeSaye, told the Star.)
Despite living in shelters as a teen, Solano says she graduated high school with honours before boarding a Greyhound bus headed to Phoenix. She had no friends, no job, no car, nor a place to live. But she landed a job at a QuikTrip convenience store and, over time, rose up to manage several outlets. She got married. She had four children.
Years later, in early 2022, now separated from her electrician husband of 17 years, Solano took the kids 鈥 all under 15 鈥 to live in their vacation home in Missouri, a 19-hour drive from their house in Buckeye, Ariz., a bedroom community near Phoenix.
Until then, Solano says, she鈥檇 lived a law-abiding life without a traffic ticket to her name. 鈥淚 was a Costco-shopping, Target-buying, Starbucks mother,鈥 she laughed.
That all changed when she met Syed Mohammed Ali Zaidi.
In her conversations with the Star, Solano has been less than forthcoming on certain details of her life 鈥 including why, one early scorching Arizona summer morning, she cut off her electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and fled as a fugitive to Mexico with her kids 鈥 but not on her motive when it comes to gun smuggling.
It was, she wrote in one email, 鈥渂ecause of my love for him.鈥澛
The man from Canada
Born in 1995 and more than a decade her junior, Zaidi and his two siblings were raised in a Scarborough social housing complex by their single mom, who came to Canada from Pakistan in 1992.
As a kid, Zaidi was expelled from Cedarbrae Collegiate Institute before finishing Grade 10; he returned to the school when he was 18, only to violently attack two other young men with a knife.
By then, Zaidi had a wife, Syeda Maryam Tirmizi, whom he married in 2012, the year they both turned 17. But they never lived together, and Zaidi spent a lot of time in and out of jail.聽
In 2015, while getting a haircut in a Scarborough barber shop, Zaidi stood up, pulled a semi-automatic pistol from beneath his cape, racked it, and fired two shots, killing a man with whom he had bad blood. A loaded, unfired firearm was later found near where the victim fell.
At a 2017 bail hearing, Tirmizi was asked about her husband鈥檚 history of violence. 鈥淭owards me, he鈥檚 not really like that,鈥 she said, responding to a Crown attorney鈥檚 questions. For his part, Zaidi told the judge he planned, if released, to study social work or auto mechanics 鈥 but his bail was denied. A few months later, he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years in prison.
He was ultimately released on parole in June 2021 and, by October of that year, he was suspected of shooting up a crowded bar on Queen Street West.
While Zaidi鈥檚 rap sheet prevented him from legally entering the U.S., that didn鈥檛 stop him.
According to Solano, they met in a Kansas City cellphone store as she perused the aisles looking for a replacement phone. It was early January 2022. She remembers her infant daughter was nestled in a baby carrier, when a tall, thin man with long black hair, beard and brown eyes caught her attention.
He told her he was from Canada, and 鈥渟omething about him reminded me of me, in a sense,鈥 she says. 鈥淗is fight to survive, his bravery, his compassion, was alluring,鈥 she says. They exchanged contact information.
鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 planning to see him, but he grew on me,鈥 and, in no time, they were 鈥減laying house鈥 together.
Syed Zaidi, seen left on a fake Arizona driver’s licence seized from Solano’s home and right with his wife Syeda Maryam Tirmizi in a photograph presented in court.
Zaidi pumped gas into her Chevy, took her sons for haircuts and played with her toddler daughter. He complimented her mothering skills. Once, he told her, 鈥淵ou have made me a better man, and I love you and everything that comes with you.鈥
Remembering that time, Solano says she believed him when he said they鈥檇 marry and have a child of their own, and that he鈥檇 never deceive her. She was 38; Zaidi told her he was 30 鈥 he was actually 25. Nor did he mention he had a wife back in Toronto.
One day, Solano鈥檚 husband showed up in Kansas City and, she says, threatened her with a gun. She called Zaidi 鈥 鈥渕y knight in shining armour.鈥 He arrived 鈥渓ike John Wick,鈥 and the two men exchanged gunfire in the quiet residential neighbourhood.
鈥淚 had bullet holes in my front door,鈥 Solano recalled. 鈥淚t was crazy.鈥
Sometime before March that year, Zaidi told her to gather up the kids. They鈥檇 head back to Arizona and 鈥渟tart our lives together.鈥
A gun runner鈥檚 motive
Smuggling by nature is covert; most operations go undetected, which means the firearms reported seized by authorities represent a fraction of the actual number entering Canada each year.
The question of how many guns enter the country is 鈥渁n unknown variable,鈥 said Trishann Pascal, executive director for combating firearms smuggling at the Canada Border Services Agency. She detailed for the Star the myriad ways illegal guns come into Canada 鈥 by water, air, the mail and across the 8,893-kilometre land border with the U.S., both at official ports of entry and along the vast, unsupervised areas.
The Glock handgun,聽No. BBF797US.
Ontario Superior Court ExhibitAsked whether chronic understaffing hinders the ability to effectively intercept smuggled goods such as firearms, Pascal cited statistics that make the point: CBSA has 8,500 front-line personnel and 200 criminal investigators to prevent dangerous goods and people from entering Canada. What she doesn鈥檛 say is that is less than one employee per kilometre. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is responsible for policing between official border crossings.
Combating gun smuggling is akin to a game of Whack-a-Mole 鈥 the criminal鈥檚 goal is to circumvent detection, and they are always finding new ways to do just that.
Late last month, a jury in Cayuga, Ont., convicted Randall McKenzie, a man in his 20s, of first-degree murder for shooting Pierzchala with Glock 19 No. BBF797US. (His girlfriend was also found guilty of first-degree murder.)
At their trial, an OPP officer estimated between 50 and 100 firearms a day illegally cross the U.S. border into Ontario.
鈥淚鈥檝e heard some law enforcement describe it as somewhat of an epidemic,鈥 McKenzie鈥檚 lawyer, Douglas Holt, suggested during cross-examination.
鈥淚t is, sir,鈥 said Sgt. Peter Reintjes, an officer with decades of firearms experience. (Asked by the Star whether there is an epidemic, the OPP wrote in a response that the rising number of crime guns submitted for tracing shows this is a growing issue that poses a substantial risk to public safety, and an imminent risk to the safety of police officers.)
Selling illegal handguns is lucrative. Undercover police officers in the GTA pay as much as $7,000 for a new gun purchased south of the border for a few hundred dollars. An unintended consequence of gun control measures in Canada 鈥 such as the ban on handguns 鈥 is the creation of a market imbalance: the price, and profits, go up in Canada鈥檚 underground economy, meanwhile the guns are cheap and legal in the U.S. And as long as organized crime and street gangs exist, that demand will continue.
The trade is also fuelled by the esthetic draw of weapons such as the Glock handgun, a blocky, utilitarian icon of the streets. Many GTA gun trials include cellphone images or videos of the accused showing off their hardware, either to bolster their tough-guy image or challenge their opponents.
A Dec. 14, 2022, selfie video presented without audio at the murder trial of Randall McKenzie.
Ontario Superior Court exhibitOn McKenzie鈥檚 seized cellphone, one such selfie video captured him driving, pulling out the gun and waving it around in an apparent attempt to look cool. It was taken Dec. 14, 2022, less than two weeks before he used it to assassinate Pierzchala.
U.S. authorities also pulled a video from Solano鈥檚 phone. In it, she can be seen wearing blue plastic gloves and handling a firearm as music plays in the background, with a row of handguns laid out nearby.
鈥淢y people get them for me,鈥 she says. 鈥淢ost of the times, they鈥檙e still tagged, so I get rid of the tags because they鈥檙e new, get rid of the boxes, clean them up, make sure they鈥檙e good, pack them and send them.鈥
Why illegal 海角社区官网guns come from Arizona
Arizona is notorious for having some of the least restrictive gun laws in the U.S. 鈥 no universal background checks, no waiting periods and anyone over 21 can carry a hidden, loaded firearm in public without a licence.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e in Starbucks, they鈥檙e at the movie theatre. They鈥檙e at the bank,鈥 Solano told the Star in 2023, when she was living in Phoenix under house arrest. 鈥淵ou can go to a strip club and have a weapon on you, it can be concealed or unconcealed. That鈥檚 their right here. No one can say s—- to you.鈥 Arizona is not, however, a typical 鈥渟ource鈥 state for Ontario crime guns, which instead usually come up the I-75 from places such as Florida and Ohio.
After settling in the Grand Canyon State, Solano recalled Zaidi telling her his mother needed knee surgery. Buying and sending firearms back to Canada would help pay some bills, she says he told her.聽
So, Solano and Zaidi started buying guns, mainly Glocks, from unlicensed, private sellers. (Criminals love the Austrian-made Glock, due to its light weight, simple-to-fire operation and ability to hold numerous rounds, according to a 2023 FATE report.)
Arizona gun runner Cynthia Solano talks about her process in an undated cellphone video presented in U.S. court and obtained by the Star.
They鈥檇 load the guns into her Tahoe and drive to Dearborn, Mich., a car-plant town just outside Detroit. There, they met two men who lived over the border. They鈥檇 stash the guns in a truck to be driven over the Ambassador Bridge to a home in Windsor with a huge plot of land. The guns would remain there until Zaidi鈥檚 associates picked them up and transported them along Highway 401 to buyers in the GTA.
鈥淚 was his golden goose,鈥 she says, referring to Zaidi. (As for who might be above Zaidi, Solano refused to discuss his criminal affiliations, other than to once say he鈥檚 connected to people 鈥渁bove him at a way higher calibre.鈥)
In May 2022, about three months after they relocated to Arizona, Zaidi told Solano he needed to return to 海角社区官网for a court appearance. Solano says she dropped him 鈥 and another load of guns 鈥 off in Michigan.
At the time, Solano says she didn鈥檛 know Tirmizi 鈥 Zaidi鈥檚 wife 鈥 would be waiting for him back in the GTA. That mind-blowing disclosure was still months away. Also waiting for Zaidi back in 海角社区官网were police officers.聽
On May 28, 2022, they watched Tirmizi and Zaidi move suitcases and bags from vehicles into homes and apartments in the city鈥檚 east end. They arrested the couple outside the apartment building on Victoria Park Avenue, where they were living. A raid at his mother鈥檚 Ellesmere Road apartment turned up 62 firearms, including eight weapons described as 鈥渁ssault rifles.鈥
海角社区官网police provided the serial numbers associated with the firearms to the U.S. ATF for tracing. Fifty-nine of the firearms were last purchased by people in Arizona.
The Glock
Those guns included a Glock purchased by Andrew David Richardson on May 5, 2022, from a licensed sporting goods store in Flagstaff, Arizona鈥檚 mountain town, about a two-hour drive north of Phoenix.
It was a separate buy a few weeks later, on June 1, 2022, when Richardson bought Glock 19 No. BBF797US at Flagstaff Pawn, according to a U.S. gun trace report obtained by the Star.
Located on historic Route 66, the shop sells used jewelry, electronics, hardware, tools and music equipment. It also has a federal firearms licence (FFL), which requires it, by statute, to keep a record of sales and report to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives the sale of two or more handguns to the same purchaser in five consecutive business days. (Flagstaff Pawn鈥檚 owner refused to answer any of the Star鈥檚 questions.)
Investigators interviewed Richardson about the gun sales, said Brendan Iber, the ATF鈥檚 Phoenix field division Special Agent in Charge. Richardson, who is in his 20s, told the ATF he sold the two Glocks at a secondary marketplace 鈥 鈥渕ost likely a gun show.鈥
In the U.S., private sales by unlicensed sellers are largely unregulated, with the federal rules leaving it up to the state to decide whether or not the seller must require a background check or keep a record of transactions. Arizona doesn鈥檛 require this.聽
This 鈥済un show loophole鈥 is the reason why Richardson鈥檚 sales were perfectly legal.
鈥淗e wasn鈥檛 doing anything nefarious with those firearms,鈥 Iber said. (The Star was unable to contact Richardson to ask further questions.)
The guns seized after Zaidi’s arrest are displayed at a 海角社区官网police news conference.
Kevin Masterman/海角社区官网policeGun-running solo
Solano continued taking loads of firearms to Michigan, throughout the summer and fall of 2022.
One of them 鈥 the Star doesn鈥檛 know which trip 鈥 included the Glock 19 No. BBF797US.
Meanwhile, she was regularly on the phone receiving directions from Zaidi while he was incarcerated in Toronto鈥檚 South and East Detention Centres.聽
When she told him she was thinking of packing it in, he became angry and, she says, threatened to send someone to her home. She tolerated the threat, still naively believing they had a future together, she explained to the Star.
Months later, after her arrest, the Star asked Solano if she ever felt guilty about her role in the scheme, because she had to know Zaidi was feeding guns to criminals.
鈥淚 did know,鈥 she wrote. 鈥淚t was wrong, but he made it seem like, 鈥楻emember Cynthia, guns don鈥檛 kill people, people kill people,鈥 and I needed to get him out (of jail).鈥
Her world was rocked, however, in December 2022. She watched . Zaidi and his wife had been picked up months earlier as part of a police operation called Project Barbell.
鈥淢en have betrayed me from the beginning,鈥 Solano told the Star, quoting something her grandmother told her in Spanish.
鈥淲omen, when we鈥檙e born, we always lose, because we鈥檙e the ones that love.鈥
In Part 2 on Sunday: Pierzchala鈥檚 murder and the arrest of gun runner Cynthia Solano.
