Police Capture Fugitive Canadian Narcotics & Firearms Suspect in Medellín Gym

Colombian counternarcotics police arrested a Canadian fugitive wanted in two countries on firearms and drug trafficking charges while he exercised at a gym in Medellín’s El Poblado district, authorities said.

Agents from Colombia’s Dirección de Antinarcóticos (Counternarcotics Directorate), the National Police unit known as DIRAN, working alongside Interpol and the Ontario Provincial Police, took Arif Jhuman, 40, into custody July 8 at a Smart Fit (B3: SMFT3) location inside the El Tesoro shopping mall, in the comuna 14 sector of El Poblado.

Jhuman, who used the alias Gillani, was the subject of an Interpol Red Notice tied to charges in both Canada and the United States. In Tampa, Florida, the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida unsealed an indictment on December 10, 2025, charging Jhuman along with four other men — Tyler Corbin, Edward Noel, Alfredo Santana and Omar Singateth — with conspiracy to traffic firearms, trafficking in firearms and dealing firearms without a license. Prosecutors said the group trafficked and conspired to traffic more than 100 firearms from Florida into Canada during 2023 and 2024; of those, authorities recovered 29 at Canadian crime scenes, including homicides. US Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe’s office brought the case under Operation Take Back America, a Justice Department initiative targeting transnational criminal organizations.

🚨‼️Medellín no es refugio de criminales.

En una operación conjunta entre la Dirección de Antinarcóticos de la Policía Nacional, en coordinación con Interpol y agencias internacionales fue capturado en Medellín Arif Jhuman, alias “Gillani”, ciudadano canadiense requerido por… pic.twitter.com/ohjweapEch

— Fico Gutiérrez (@FicoGutierrez) July 9, 2026

Ontario Provincial Police first sought Jhuman in April 2023, when they said he had gone unlawfully at large after breaching parole granted during a nine-year, 11-month sentence for drug trafficking. Jhuman was known to frequent Toronto before he disappeared. Colombian authorities said he entered the country using false documents; he had been living in Medellín since 2025.

Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez announced the arrest, describing it as the product of coordinated intelligence work among Colombian, Canadian and international agencies. “We work hand in hand with national and international authorities to close off routes for transnational criminal structures. There is authority, intelligence and cooperation here to find them and bring them before the law,” Gutiérrez wrote.

Colombian investigators are also examining a possible link between Jhuman and a British organized-crime network dismantled in Medellín in late 2025, according to El Colombiano. Three UK nationals — Christopher Neil Costello, known as Dips; Robert Steven Taylor; and Liam George Anton O’Brien — were captured in the same comuna 14 sector in November and December 2025 on drug trafficking charges tied to a group Colombian authorities have connected to the Clan del Golfo, which allegedly moved narcotics into England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Preliminary intelligence suggests Jhuman may have provided logistical support for arms and drug shipments moving through the US and Canada toward that network, Colombian investigators said, though the connection remains under investigation.

Colombian authorities have not disclosed a timeline for Jhuman’s legal proceedings or a possible extradition to the United States, where he faces the firearms trafficking case. His arrest was the 27th capture of a foreign fugitive in Colombia so far in 2026 on narcotics- and weapons-related charges, according to El Colombiano.

Photo courtesy Ontario Provincial Police.