But the one thing they apparently hadn't taken into account was the reputation of a random element, known to the science of entomology as Anoplophora glabripennis - and to the rest of us as the Asian longhorned beetle.
"The same container was received in Montreal last July. There were no narcotics inside, but the container was flagged because of the wood used in the crates," Canadian Border Services Agency spokesperson Dominique McNeely explained.
In fact, the problem wasn't so much with the wood but with suspicions that a dangerous type of stowaway had hitched a ride in it.
The Asian longhorned beetle has been making it onto border agency communiques as prominently as hashish seizures; the insect's appetite for domestic hardwood trees like maple, poplar, willow, elm and birch is so voracious, the border security agency describes the species as "an invasive quarantine pest."
The container was ordered back to its country of origin and didn't show up again on the agency's radar until it returned to Montreal last month.
McNeely couldn't say exactly what drew inspectors' attention to the container the second time around, but acknowledged it would be "a very reasonable assumption" to think July's beetle scare played a role.
The container yielded 1.7 tonnes of hashish, carrying an estimated street value of $36 million. The drugs have been turned over to the RCMP for further investigation.
Last year, Border Services Agency officials seized about $2.2 billion worth of narcotics over the course of 12,000 inspections nationwide. About 2,000 of those inspections occurred in Quebec - most of them in the Montreal area - and saw about $200 million worth of narcotics seized.
