How shall I proceed if my car may contain illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia before entering Canada by car from the US?

The police would MUCH rather just take the drugs. I used to work at a facility that handled controlled medications. One of my responsibilities was to take the medications of past patients to the police station so that they could have them destroyed. This is a win/win for the police and they are not likely to press into your story for two reasons:

1. They don’t want the drugs on the street, so they will happily take them
2. They don’t have to go anywhere to get the drugs: you are surrendering them.

Possession is a crime, but it is not unheard of for druggies to forget things in places… even their drugs. Therefore, according to your story, since the possession was not your choice or the result of any actions of yours and since you are giving them the drugs, they will likely just take them and not worry about you. It’s not worth it to chase after someone if they are giving up drugs. Do drug mules just give their drugs to the police without being caught first? NO, that would make for a TERRIBLE mule! That is the opposite of what a mule does. Hell, the police would LOVE it if every mule did that because then their streets would be cleaner.

For future readers, it’s smarter to forget the bias, at least temporarily, and surrender the drugs to the police.

I assume you reported the break-in to the police? If your intent was to report this situation to the authorities, that would have been the time to do so.

While I agree that the border patrol are likely to be the least sympathetic, I don’t think there is a de facto answer to how a given police force (local, municipal, CBP, etc…) would react; it will likely depend on the precinct and officer who takes your report.

The right thing to do is to report the abandoned items, but the smart thing to do is to avoid the unpredictability of the authorities and scan your car for additional items and clear them out.

Realistically, if a razor/works/pipe fell out of a perp’s pocket, then that is probably all there is to find. It might give you peace of mind to have your car deep cleaned, but I think that it is unlikely to affect the end result. I sincerely do not think that CBP is looking for trace amounts of residue so much as they are looking for transporters who are trying to smuggle a stash for fun or profit.

If you feel truly concerned about ensuring that this incident is reported to an authority, then consider consulting a lawyer.

Best of luck!

If either the American or or Canadian police find drugs in your car they will assume it’s yours

Possession is 9/10ths of the law. If there are drugs in your car a border agent will assume it’s yours. Do not ask the American police to screen the car for you. They’ll think you’re a drug mule checking your work. If they find drugs they will assume they are yours.

You can file a police report if you want. They will probably show up after 3 hours, write a report and walk away. They will not check anything.

At the very least go to a self-service cleaning lot and do a thorough search of your car and vacuum everything. Personally, I’d go to a full-service car wash and pay for a deep interior cleaning just to get rid of the ick factor.

Many drug runners steal a car at night – use it to run pounds of drugs, then abandon it before the owner wakes up. I know this because one of my friend’s had her car stolen likely for this purpose. The cops found it that afternoon and told her they suspected this happened. The cops didn’t do a search of the car.

I’d suggest a professional deep-clean + a thorough check yourself of any nook or cranny you can get to without tools.

EDIT – in response to this answer. Which is dangerously wrong.

There is also a saying – tell it to the judge. People will insist they are innocent and someone hid drugs/guns/money in their car, house, or on their person to frame them regardless of mountains of evidence that suggest otherwise.

I’d bet the first words out of every mule’s mouth are "those drugs aren’t mine."

Think about it – if you could get a get-out-of-jail free card by having the cops check your car before-hand, then you’d get them to check – THEN put the drugs in.

If you ask the cops to search your car and they find something, they’ll just assume you are a dumb criminal, and book you anyway.

If the cops on either side find something they’ll book you, tell you they don’t care about your story, and to explain everything to the judge. The judge has probably heard this before too.

As pointed out by a commentor here,

To CBP this is a "the dog ate my homework" story.

I know, love and trust Franck. I know the story is true.

The simple fact is, if you told this story to a thousand humans, 999 would snicker and assume it’s a story.

1000/1000 border agents will give you maximum grief.

(The notion of "cleaning" the car mentioned a few times on this page is risible. Dip the entire car in a swimming pool of vodka for two weeks, and the dog will just say to it’s handler "Huh – this guy tried the vodka swimming pool trick, he must be a serious dealer.")

If you’re very paranoid about potential drugs, I’d pay for a full detail of the interior and exterior. I highly doubt the drug addict had specialty tools on them to hide drugs within the cars internal compartment, so a regular detail and car wash should get rid of all residue.

Just make sure to never mention this story to the border agents, as this sounds like a great way to get banned from the country as a suspected drug mule. As far as you’re concerned the car has no drugs whatsoever, end of story.

Here is what I would do.

1. Look through you car thoroughly and identify all illegal items but don’t touch them
2. Drive to the local police station, file a report and ask what to do with the illegal stuff. Chances are they will take the items as evidence. They may want to search the car themselves: you can give them permission to do so. Ask them for advice what else to do and how to handle the border.
3. Clean your car and make sure to remove any residues
4. Keep a copy with the police report with you in case a dog sniffs something.