Say what it will actually cost
Duties, demurrage, surcharges — quoted up front, not discovered at the door. A surprise invoice is a relationship killer.
Our story · Scarborough, Ontario
Twenty years of moving goods
Arifs Trade International began with one desk, one phone and a promise: tell a client exactly what a shipment will cost, then do it. Nearly two decades later, that is still the whole business model.
20
Years in the market
2
Offices in Scarborough
4
Services, end to end
Where it started
Altaf started it with a phone book
Before there was a company, there was the trade floor. Mohammed Altaf spent his early years inside other people's import houses — learning which mills in Dhaka actually deliver on time, which freight forwarder quietly re-quotes at the port, and how a container gets held for a single wrong digit on a form.
He registered Arifs Trade International Canada Inc. on Danforth Avenue in Scarborough. No warehouse, no staff, no website — just a network of suppliers and carriers built one honest deal at a time, and a reputation for picking up the phone.
The first years were small orders and long nights: sampling runs, textile containers, a client's cousin who needed something cleared by Friday. Word travelled the way it does in trade — one buyer telling another that this outfit didn't invent surprises.
The long haul
The story so far, milestone by milestone
- 2005
A single desk on Danforth
Mohammed Altaf registers the company with one phone line, a fax machine and a handful of supplier contacts built over years of working other people's shipments.
- 2009
The first full container
A recurring client asks Altaf to handle an entire container end to end — sourcing, booking, clearance, delivery. The firm learns that clients want one partner, not four.
- 2013
Lanes to South Asia and the Gulf
Regular sailings to Karachi and Dubai turn opportunistic trading into a schedule. Buyers can finally plan a season instead of chasing a quote.
- 2017
Customs becomes in-house
Rather than outsourcing clearance, the firm builds its own compliance desk — HS classification, CBSA filings and duty management brought under one roof.
- 2021
Through the disruption
Pandemic freight chaos tests every assumption. Long-term carrier agreements and honest lead-time talk keep existing clients shipping while others stall.
How we work
What the years taught us
Own the whole chain
When sourcing, freight and clearance sit with one team, nobody gets to point a finger when a shipment slips.
Relationships over volumes
Suppliers in Dhaka, Karachi, Dubai and Shanghai answer because Altaf called them for years, not because a spreadsheet listed them.
Small enough to care
Every file gets a named person who can tell you where your cargo is without opening a ticket.
A note from the founder
“Import and export is not a document business. It's a trust business. The paperwork is the same for everyone — what you do when a container is stuck is who you are.”
MA
Mohammed Altaf
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Put those years to work
Tell us what you need moved and we'll show you the route, the cost and the paperwork before anything ships.