Two Hundred and Fifty Blank Cards and Two Hundred and Fifty Holograms Came Off a Plane at Mirabel, and Twenty-Six Months Later a Man Who Allegedly Used Thirty False Identities Is in Court at Saint-Jérôme: the CBSA Charges Ahmad Jawid Toukhi (September 9, 2026)
SAINT-JÉRÔME — A hologram is the part of an identity document that is supposed to be the hard part. On a day in March 2024, a Canada Border Services Agency officer at Mirabel International Airport opened an import and found two hundred and fifty of them, sitting alongside two hundred and fifty blank cards cut to resemble the Canadian permanent resident card. That seizure is where this file starts. It surfaced publicly on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, when the CBSA published a release under a Saint-Jérôme dateline naming Ahmad Jawid Toukhi, 40, and when La Presse reported the same day at 2:04 p.m. that the indictment against him runs to ten counts and alleges he operated under roughly thirty false identities.
Toukhi appeared Wednesday at the Palais de justice de Saint-Jérôme. He entered no plea. He is back in court on November 30, 2026.
What the July 2024 Search Produced
- Forged identity documents containing inaccurate biographical information.
- Materials associated with the fabrication of counterfeit documents.
- A restricted firearm — a 9×19 mm Glock model 48 semi-automatic.
- Three magazines.
- Location: a residence on the North Shore of Montreal. La Presse places it in Deux-Montagnes. The CBSA release describes Toukhi as a Montreal man; La Presse describes him as a resident of Deux-Montagnes. Both descriptions are reproduced here as published.
“What Had Every Appearance of a Production Laboratory”
CBSA spokesperson Dominique McNeely, interviewed by La Presse, described what officers walked into: « Les enquêteurs sont arrivés chez lui et ils ont découvert ce qui avait toutes les apparences d’un laboratoire de production de faux documents ». Beyond permanent resident cards, he said the equipment was set up to produce Ontario and Quebec driver’s licences. He could not quantify its production capacity.
That inability to quantify is the honest limit of this file. Two hundred and fifty blanks were intercepted at the border. How many were produced before or after that interception is not stated by anyone.
Six Charges in the Release, Ten Counts in the Indictment
The two accounts do not line up, and the gap is worth setting out rather than smoothing over.
The CBSA release lists six charges: smuggling into Canada goods whose importation is prohibited under the Criminal Code, namely items intended for the production of counterfeit identification documents, contrary to the Customs Act; making false or misleading statements by importing goods into Canada under a false identity, contrary to the Customs Act; possessing identity information with intent to use it to create false documents; making false identification documents, including a fraudulent Canadian passport and false Canadian permanent resident cards; knowingly importing, selling, offering for sale or making available counterfeit identification documents; and defrauding the Government of Canada by smuggling prohibited goods.
La Presse reports ten counts in total, half of them tied to the manufacture or resale of false permanent resident cards, and adds one the CBSA release does not itemise: possession of a restricted firearm, the Glock 48. The agency’s own release lists the Glock among the items seized but does not carry a firearms count in its bulleted list of charges. Neither account explains the discrepancy, and no inference is drawn from it here.
La Presse also reports that one of the counts concerns smuggling machines used to produce false cards into Canada under a false identity, and that other counterfeit documents named in the indictment include Quebec health insurance cards and social insurance cards.
Why This Is on This Beat
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, quoted in the release, put the connection plainly: “Forged documents are often used to facilitate identity theft, fraud, organized crime and immigration-related offences.” Eric Lapierre, the CBSA’s Regional Director General for Quebec, said combatting fraud and identity theft is an agency priority.
Neither statement names an organization, and neither alleges that Toukhi supplied one. What the file supports on its face is narrower and still substantial: an alleged commercial-scale document manufacturing capability, imported through an airport under a false name, sitting in the same room as a restricted handgun. Nothing beyond that is asserted here.
The Record Behind the Name
La Presse reports Toukhi has previous convictions. In 2011 he pleaded guilty to 22 counts related to the falsification of credit cards and received 183 days in custody. In 2017 he pleaded guilty to criminal harassment, drawing 12 months of probation and a 12-month licence suspension. In 2020 he was acquitted of four counts of fraud, use of a forged document and identity theft.
The CBSA also situates the file among its own recent cases. In December 2024 an agency investigation into the importation of false documents produced a prison sentence — La Presse identifies that accused as Jonghun Lee, who pleaded guilty in November 2024 to attempting to smuggle 509 counterfeit blank permanent resident cards and 506 counterfeit blank Alberta driver’s licences and received 30 months. In May 2025 another CBSA investigation led to charges over importing equipment used to make false identities; La Presse names that accused as Djamel Eddine Boutarene, a Montrealer whose trial is set for September 21, 2026.
Who Was on the File
The CBSA credits its officers at Mirabel International Airport, the CBSA Quebec Region Intelligence Section, the CBSA Analytical and Forensic Services Division, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cryptocurrency Tactical Operational Support team. The presence of a cryptocurrency unit on a document-fraud file is the one detail suggesting the money side of this was traced; nothing has been published about what it found.
No file or occurrence number appears in the release. No dollar figure is attached to anything seized. Toukhi has entered no plea, is presumed innocent, and none of these allegations has been tested in court.
Mirabel to Saint-Jérôme — the CBSA Document File
Primary Sources
- Canada Border Services Agency: “CBSA investigation leads to fraud charges related to the making of false documents”, Saint-Jerôme, Quebec, September 9, 2026. Source for the Mirabel seizure, the July 11, 2024 search, the seized items, the six listed charges, the partner agencies and both ministerial and regional quotations.
- La Presse, Karim Benessaieh: « Deux-Montagnes | Un atelier de faux documents d’immigration et d’identité démantelé », published September 9, 2026 at 14 h 04. Source for the ten-count total, the roughly thirty false identities, the Glock 48 count, the Deux-Montagnes address, the McNeely interview, Toukhi’s prior record, and the Lee and Boutarene comparisons.
- The two accounts differ on the charge count. The CBSA lists six charges and does not include a firearms count in that list, although it lists the Glock among items seized. La Presse reports ten counts including possession of the restricted Glock 48. Both are set out above; neither source explains the difference.
- The two accounts also differ on residence. The CBSA describes a 40-year-old Montreal man; La Presse describes a 40-year-old resident of Deux-Montagnes. Both are reproduced as published.
- The Anandasangaree quotation is from the CBSA release and speaks to forged documents generally. It is not a statement that this accused supplied any organization. No criminal organization is named by the CBSA, by the RCMP or by La Presse in this file, and none is named here.
- No file or occurrence number and no dollar valuation appears in the release. Ahmad Jawid Toukhi has entered no plea, is presumed innocent, and none of these allegations has been tested in court.