The Current - Missing Black Boys: Inside a Growing Crisis

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Teenage boys are going missing across Ontario and families say it’s not random. In this episode, we speak with Mark Kelley, co-host of the Fifth Estate, about his investigation into a troubling pattern: young Black boys disappearing, then turning up far from home often recruited by organized crime networks to sell drugs. We also hear from Shana McCalla, founder of the Find Ontario Missing Boys committee, who began sounding the alarm about these missing boys.

The Alto High Speed Rail Project is on track. Expected travel time from Toronto to Montreal, three hours. Next stop, public consultations in your community. Make your voice heard. Visit altotrain.ca for more information. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. I said, just give me my son back and that's it.

Drop them off somewhere. Let me go pick them up. I don't even did to see you. I don't need to see anything. Those are the words of an Ontario father. recalling Marcus, his 16-year-old son went missing in 2022. We aren't using Marcus' real identity out of fear of retribution from gang members who recruited his son.

In what you just heard, the dad is recalling pleading with those gang members for his son's return. After searching for the teen himself, Marcus finally found him in Thunder Bay, Ontario, 1,400 kilometers north from his home in the greater Toronto area. Mark Kelly is co-host with CBC's The Fifth Estate, and he spoke with Marcus as part of his new investigation looking into dozens of cases of missing black boys in Ontario, recruited by street gangs to sell drugs. Mark's with me in our Toronto studio. Good morning. Good morning, Matt. Tell me a little bit about Marcus and what you found out about what happened to his son. It's a harrowing story, Marcus's story that he shared with us. He talks about his son was 16 years old,

about the warning signs that he started to see with his son. His son started coming home with clothes that his father hadn't bought it. And he starts asking him, he says, you don't have a job. Where are you getting these clothes? Cell phones start showing up. He's wondering, what is these cell phones? And then he realizes that there was a grooming process that was going on. A grooming process. A grooming process by older boys, that he believes older boys, young men that are taking, bringing the son under his influence to give him some things, to entice him, say, let's do some work together. So that was the starting. He realized in retrospect these red flags. His son disappears. He says, I just need a few days off. Dad, I'm feeling stressed out. And

Marcus says, I didn't believe that for a second. Goes to the Durham Police east of Toronto, where they were able to pick up a cell phone signal from his son in Thunder Bay. And unlike when this has happened to whether parents and a son goes missing, they wait, they wait for the police to find him. They wait for their kids to come home. And Marcus said, no, I'm going to Thunder Bay. He and his wife jumped in their car, made the 14, 15-hour drive from the Toronto area to Thunder Bay, spent days there looking for their son. and he would eventually be found. But he realized there that his son had been recruited, groomed, used to sell drugs up in Thunder Bay.

He managed to pull him out by putting some heat around that. The gangs didn't want the heat. They didn't want the attention. They didn't want the police looking for this boy. So the boy was cast off. Marcus found his son. But that was just the beginning of our investigation. And the realization that there's a revolving door.

You find one boy. There's several more boys there that are also being recruited. and they're going to take his place. Dozens of cases of missing black boys in Ontario. What did you learn about that? Well, that finding one doesn't solve the problem. Finding half a dozen of them doesn't solve the problem. The key here is the boys keep going missing.

We've been following the story for about a year. I mean, some people will say, well, this isn't new, that this has happened before, and that's true. But what we're learning is that the boys are being now moved further and further away from the greater Toronto area. And I say boys. and I want to emphasize this. We're talking about kids between the ages of 12 and 17.

These are kids. They're kids. So the gangs are recruiting these kids to work for them, to move drugs for them, to sell drugs for them. Because if they are caught, if they arrested, of course, they're going to face a lighter penalty than the adults who are actually recruiting them. So in Marcus's own words, he says, you cowards, as he calls them, are using my kids to do your dirty work. And that's exactly the way that this program works. I want to talk about that dirty work. But what did you learn about how these gang members are drawing these young boys in?

What's going on here? You know, it's a real appeal to these boys. It's a real enticement to these boys. But what can we offer you? We can offer you some status. We can offer you some money. We can offer you respect and power and masculinity. You know, it's really rhaps.

these things around for these kids. And a lot of this is playing out on social media as well, this idea of like kids with stacks of money and this is what it means to be a man. There is a huge digital influence on these boys. And you're absolutely right. This is what it means to be a man. And we've seen the images on social media

with the kids wearing their brands, with the kids with stacks of cash. And that is part of this appeal. That is part of this influence that draws these boys in and away from their families. And you spoke with people about that. and about what's going on in the community. Tell me a little bit about that, about this young man that you met O'Shea Stewart.

O'Shea, he's a specialized school counselor working in the Toronto area. This is a guy who comes from gang influence on his own when he was growing up. His own story, of being shot at, being stabbed, you know, grew up with a strict mother, but was pulled away because he said he just lived in a community that were you surrounded by crime. And at a certain point, and this is what happens with so many of these kids growing up, you're forced to take a side. And O'Shea took aside that he now regrets, but now he's giving back by working to help keep these kids in school

and out of the grips of gangs. And he told us about that influence that is really, really used to pull these kids in because it's something that he lived himself. Let's listen to what he has to say. Well, it's hard, right? It's you want to belong somewhere. You want to be respected. And unfortunately, I mean, if you're not,

a basketball player, an athlete, or, you know, the cool guy, it's kind of easy to place yourself within these circles. The more money you make defines how much of, I guess, a man you are, apparently. Like, money is always a cool thing. Once these boys are lured into this world by these older men, who might be tied to a gang, just to explain what happens. We spent some time in Thunder Bay, and one of the things we heard up there in talking about the drugs crisis,

would people refer to these things called trap houses, I never had no idea what a trap house was. You go to a trap house in this. Tell me what is that? Yeah, so a trap house, and we did go into one, it's a house. It was what would have been, you know, the house that we went to was a townhouse.

And it was a townhouse that months before, there was a family of four living in there. And then what happened is a mother and father, who were there, they got hooked on fentanyl. You run up drug debts. The gangs then come in and say, well, you owe us some money, so now you're going to do us a favor. We're taking over your home.

And when they take over the home, the boys are then brought in, and they will live in these trap houses to sell their drugs. We went inside one, it's squalid. I mean, the remnants of what used to be a family life in there. Eventually, the couples, two children were taken away from them by use services. And that's used by these gangs, and the kids are then kept in these houses. They don't go outside. And that's the plan.

The kids are used. They're kept in there. They sell the drugs from there. They live in there. They live in there. And eventually, they're allowed to return home. But, you know, we're talking about before this digital influence, this glamour-glamorizing about what it's like.

You go inside here, and it's a death trap. And this is the, you know, the glamour that they're being offered. And I just, it's a reminder to me that I don't think these kids know what they're signing up for when they're being sold on this pipe dream. Marcus, who we heard from earlier, as you said, He found his son in Thunder Bay, hours and hours away from home. You're a dad as well. Like, I'm a dad.

You're a dad. What was that like? You can't imagine what that would be like for a father. As we know, as parents, I mean, it's our fundamental job to keep our kids safe. And Marcus's story and the other parents who talked to us during this investigation. I mean, this is their fear. Their kids walk out and out of their influence. And then they're into the influence in the hands of these gangs.

And now they're moving them. As I mentioned before, Matt, further and further afield. Not just a Thunder Bay. No, farther than Thunder Bay is a launching point because Thunder Bay is sort of a gateway to northern Ontario and to the, you know, 30 plus First Nations reserves there. So we went to a First Nations reserve called Gunugaming, three and a half hour drive northeast of Thunder Bay. And we were drawn there because there was an incident there with two boys from Brampton, north of Toronto, one 15, one 18 year old. They're driven up to Gunugaming Reserve, only 200 people on the reserve. dropped off in a traphouse to sell drugs, left to fend for themselves.

Two men from the reserve show up. They tell the guys to the boys to take a hike. A dispute ensues. Shots are fired. One man, indigenous man is shot dead. The other shot six time and survives. Those two boys are eventually arrested by police. The 15-year-old right now in youth detention.

The 18-year-old facing as much as 24 years in prison. They were used by the gangs. They were recruited by the gangs, and then they're disposed of them by the gangs. And this is what happens. This is the glamorous trip that these kids take into very, very dangerous territory. The Alto High Speed Rail Project is on track. Expected travel time from Toronto to Montreal, three hours. Next stop, public consultations in your community.

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Learn more at viking.com. What is your understanding of how police have been involved in what's happening right now? How successful have they been in stopping this or in addressing them? Addressing, yes. Stopping, no. And we spoke to multiple police departments. We're in contact with multiple police departments. And they will acknowledge that kids from marginalized communities are now more vulnerable to be recruited by these gangs.

And these gangs have a very organized system, I say, of using these kids, transporting them into these places to sell their drugs. Police acknowledge this is happening. And more and more they're seeing it happen in far-flin communities outside of the greater Toronto area. These kids are being used to do this. However, the key here is solutions. What are the solutions?

And from police, that's where we're not hearing much. Acknowledging the problem, not coming forward with solutions. What about from the community? We're going to speak in just a moment with somebody that you spoke with, the founder of Find Ontario Missing Boys. How is the community responding to this? Well, the community is at the core of this story. The reason we know about this story, Matt, is because the community was

got together. They said, we need more attention. We need media attention. We need police attention. We need more answers because we need to help these missing boys. And that's what inspired us at the fifth estate to jump aboard this story, really because of the passion and the commitment of people in the black community. That founder of that organization, Find Ontario Missing Boys, is Shanea McAllah, who's with us in studio as well. Good morning to you. Good morning. Why did you want to get involved in this? To me, it was very shocking that so many boys were missing, so many that it seemed really an urgent crisis. And then as the numbers continue to grow and these cases were being largely ignored and there was no media attention, I thought, I have to act. I have to do something about it.

And so we heard from Marcus. He started looking for his son himself. How much of a role, if you take a look at police in the justice system and perhaps mistrust in the community when it comes to police, how much of a role does that play? And these parents deciding, you know what, I'm going to do this myself. I'm going to go and try and find my son. Yeah, the parents have to. They have to. They feel like there's no other way.

In some cases, you know, the ability to follow a missing person's report is delayed. There's no urgency. There's no transparency. there's a lot of silence around these cases and the parents just feel like there's they've lost all hope they can't sleep they can't function um you know there's mental uh health struggles when your child is missing how do you cope and um that's really where i found a majority of our families at a loss for of any hope you've you've gone with some of those parents to try and find their kids right yes i went to thunder bay with a

uncle of a missing boy, met Detective Saunders out there and their team, knocked on traphouse doors. They raided a few trap houses in front of us. We eventually found him out there. They released him. I keep saying this, but these are just kids. How would you describe what the kids have gone through and what the scars that they feel because of what they've gone through? It's indescribable. Indescribable. The boys come back unrecognizable to their parents. especially the ones that are gone for 10, 11 months. You get your son back and you have this picture in your mind of what they were or who you remember them to be,

and then they return completely different. And that process of reintegration of dealing with the trauma must be a long and complicated one too. It really is. After the fact, after we find our boys, I still work with the families and take calls late at night. because they need support even when they're returned. There's a long process of healing that needs to be put in place. And if you've been out of school for a year, there's school to catch up on. There's so much that they've missed and so much that they need to overcome.

You describe this as a crisis. Why do you think there are a lot of people who are hearing this now for the first time? They don't know anything about this. They don't know that there is a crisis of miscarriage. missing black boys in the largest city in Canada. Why are they just hearing about this now, do you think? Yeah, that's a great question. I feel like nobody was paying attention to it.

And that's how Final Tour and Missing Boys was birthed, a series of viral post and families started reaching out. And the community just rallied behind these families. When you look at the faces of these boys, it's hard to ignore, and it's a public safety crisis. So if people want to ignore it, it's not just a black community problem. It's an everybody problem. And I think that's what people are starting to recognize.

It has gone flown way too far under the radar, and police just need to do more to bring these boys back faster. And, you know, I'm grateful that I've been able to sit down and be in rooms with them to be able to let them know, that, you know, we're watching and we're, and we're, parents don't want to be waiting and feel like they're, they don't have a voice anymore. Do you feel like police are doing more now in the wake of the work that you're doing?

But the increase in attention, are police now doing more to try to address this? I feel like certain regional police have responded way better than, than in the beginning. And I feel like I've made progress. in how these cases are handled. But, you know, there's still a lot more to be done. There's boys that are missing now almost a year with the case of Josiah Webb Long. He was, you know, cross-provincial trafficked to Saskatchewan.

And we still have no answers in that case. And we see the same thing happening with our boys who are murdered, right? Their cases also go unsolved, to jukai Jack, 15 years old from Toronto. know, his case is still unsolved. Raheim White, he's an older young black man at the time. But the lack of urgency is parallel in these cases. The phrase that gets used, Mark, in the documentary from the Fifth, is human trafficking. That's what this is about, right?

Yeah, and that's the core issue. I mean, what we really try to pull at in our investigation is how these kids are seen. Are they victims or are they criminals? You know, the acts that they're committing here. Have they been coerced into something or have they made a choice? And some police that we spoke to, Thunder Bay Police, they call it human trafficking. So the question we have is when, you know, the police raid a trap house and they find a 14-year-old kid there with three adults. Why aren't the adults charged with human trafficking?

And that's something that Shana has raised. That's something other parents have raised. What happens with these gang members when police find out that they are responsible for luring these missing boys? boys to, whether it's Thunder Bay or to those First Nations to sell drugs? Well, we see that the gang members will be charged for drug offenses, for gun offenses, but not for human trafficking. Because, and this is what it comes to be able to prove this, that requires the child, the 14-year-old, to testify against the gang members, against the people who recruited them into this criminal network. There's a line in the film, the boys rule is to

serve the gangs, not to sell them out. Exactly. So that's just not going to happen. And that's the problem. And I think that's the frustration for the parents that if there is nothing stopping these gangs from doing this, then that cycle is just going to continue. And we're seeing it continue right now. What do you think needs to change, Shana, just finally, when it comes to how, not just how these cases are handled, but how we think about a story like this? I think, you know, we need less statistics and more action. and I think people need to realize that these are children. Putting labels on them and stereotyping them as runaways,

because that was the narrative in the very beginning, is not helpful to anyone. It puts us all in danger. And as a society, we have to protect our children. We cannot, you know, have families living in permanent uncertainty. And fear that if they speak out about this, as we heard from Marcus, the gangs will come back after them. Several families are living in fear right now, the cases that I'm working on.

so fearful that they are now not even filing a missing person's report because, you know, they've been told not to. Because they worry about their well-being. They're worried that if they file a missing person's report, now that, you know, now they see the attention that it's finally getting through the final TRIM missing voice community, if you have a poster up there, it's going to reach thousands upon thousands of people online, right? So some of these families are now concerned that if they file it, there's going to be retribution. I think an important thing just to add here in closing is this isn't a black community problem, Matt. This is a Canadian problem. And we really want to bring that to the attention in the country with the documentary that will later tonight. Shana, it's really good to talk to you about this and thank you for the work that you're doing.

Thank you so much for having me. Mark, this is really eye-opening. Thank you for being here. Thanks, man. Shana McCalla is the founder of the Find Ontario Missing Boys Committee. Mark Kelly is a co-host with CBC's the Fifth The State. His new investigation, Missing Black Boys, airs tonight at 9 p.m. on CBC television, or you can watch it anytime on YouTube.

You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.