Many of the properties of concern are large-acreage farms with cannabis licenses dating back decades—once controlled by B.C. biker gangs, but quietly consolidated since the early 2000s under the influence of figures linked to the Sam Gor syndicate.

Nestled in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley, hugging the U.S. border, Cultus Lake is surrounded by towering rainforest pines—a postcard image of Canada’s serene beauty. Shaped by the last Ice Age, the south shore’s cavernous ridges form the Columbia Valley, which snakes into Washington State—sparsely populated, with no official border crossing, and peopled mostly by large ranch owners. But the pristine corridor conceals deadly secrets with geopolitical consequences.

According to multiple Canadian intelligence experts, significant Columbia Valley properties have been quietly seized as strategic high ground by associates of the notorious Sam Gor narco syndicate, operating in tandem with agents of the Chinese state’s security and foreign influence apparatus.

Experts describe what amounts to a special zone of Chinese crime and influence activities—tied clandestinely to Beijing in function, if not officially—a secure enclave where key properties have been tied to covert cross-border helicopter operations.

Many of the properties of concern are large-acreage farms with cannabis licenses dating back decades—once controlled by B.C. biker gangs, but quietly consolidated since the early 2000s under the influence of figures linked to the Sam Gor syndicate. The networks tied to these estates, sources say, not only profit from cannabis and sophisticated money laundering brokerages that transfer illicit proceeds—ultimately benefiting the Chinese state—but are also linked to Beijing’s so-called “CCP police station” activities, and numerous significant investigations into fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and Chinese precursor imports.

According to one source familiar with U.S. government investigations in British Columbia, one Columbia Valley property stands out with exceptional urgency. Spanning roughly 30 acres and situated steps from the U.S. border, the estate has triggered alarms among The Bureau’s national security sources—not only due to its strategic location, but because of the individuals connected to it.

Chief among them: Sam Gor himself, the syndicate’s elusive boss, a Chinese Canadian named Tse Chi Lop. Of equal or greater concern: a senior Chinese security and intelligence figure with ties to Sam Gor’s upper command, and individuals associated with Chinese mining and chemical interests and Beijing’s United Front Work Department.

According to RCMP sources, the site has also been linked to numerous narcotics investigations in Western Canada and cross-border helicopter activity into Washington State—escalating it from regional concern to a geopolitical flashpoint between Ottawa and Washington.

Among other key figures linked to the property: Peter Lap-San Pang, a Toronto-based alleged Sam Gor associate named in a British Columbia civil forfeiture case involving a suspected illegal mansion casino; and Ye Long Yong, a convicted Sam Gor “kingpin” identified in Canadian court files for importing, exporting, and trafficking heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine. During a parole hearing, Ye told officials that “a successful person in Toronto gave” him his drug business.

The parole records noted: “There was a great deal of effort from many police organizations from all around the world, with interpreters in several languages and evidence gathered for a long period of time in order to infiltrate and bring down Mr. YE’s criminal organization.”

Also tied to the property is a United Front–associated “Big Circle Boy” contemporary of Tse Chi Lop, who was named in B.C.’s anti-money laundering inquiry as the superior of Paul King Jin—the notorious boxing gym owner, loan shark, and money laundering suspect at the center of Canada’s largest-ever casino money laundering investigation, E-Pirate.

These are just several of the “many other Sam Gor members” associated with this 30-acre farm on the U.S. border, a source said—individuals who have surfaced repeatedly in B.C.’s highest-profile organized crime investigations over the past two decades, including the E-Pirate case.

Most of the Sam Gor and Chinese state-linked suspects tied to this particular Chilliwack-area border property—with the exception of Tse Chi Lop—remain less publicly known than Paul King Jin, whose notoriety has steadily grown since the Vancouver Sun’s 2017 revelations about the RCMP’s failed E-Pirate probe. Jin later survived a high-profile targeted shooting at Richmond’s Manzo restaurant in 2020—an attack that killed his business partner, Jian Jun Zhu, another Sam Gor leader allegedly behind the Silver International operation. That Richmond-based scheme—now infamous for revealing the “Vancouver Model” of money laundering—is believed to have moved hundreds of millions in drug proceeds through a combination of government-regulated and underground casinos, with links to drug-cash banks embedded in diaspora communities across the Western Hemisphere, including Mexico, South America, and hundreds of Chinese bank accounts.

More recently, The Globe and Mail reported troubling information—verified by The Bureau—that Canadian security officials had clandestinely surveilled Jin and other Chinese businessmen privately meeting with then–Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a Richmond hotel, during the height of the E-Pirate and related Chinese narcotics trafficking investigations in British Columbia.

The U.S. government’s concerns about transnational money laundering suspects tied to this nexus—including individuals connected to Columbia Valley properties and the private meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau—were underscored by a request for RCMP assistance in surveilling several Chinese nationals who, according to one source, arrived in Vancouver on a private jet.

Yet while Jin drew headlines in Canada, Sam Gor leader Tse Chi Lop—who holds Canadian citizenship—operated far more quietly across Vancouver, Toronto, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, mainland China, and the United States prior to his arrest in the Netherlands several years ago. He has long been identified as a top figure in what former U.S. State Department investigator David Asher describes as the “command and control” layer of Chinese Communist Party-linked money laundering in Toronto and Vancouver, facilitating the financial operations of Mexican, Latin American, and Chinese cartels across the Western Hemisphere.

One of the key figures associated by Canadian intelligence with the 30-acre Columbia Valley farm, Ye Long Yong, is also little known outside elite international law enforcement circles. But his role in Sam Gor’s transnational operations from Vancouver was extremely significant, an intelligence source said. Filings from his parole hearings underscore this, stating: “Mr. YE operated his criminal organization for years prior to his arrest. He demonstrated his ability to conceal his illegal activities from the authorities for many years.”

Pointing to yet another high-profile property near Cultus Lake, a different source said: “There’s another very, very significant Asian organized crime woman—she had a heavy influence out in that area, to do with cannabis. And she apparently had a lot of higher-level Chinese government connections.”

Another source, familiar with a federal investigation involving an organized crime figure flying a helicopter from the Cultus Lake region into U.S. territory, emphasized long-standing frustrations between allied agencies. “With the choppers and this area around Cultus Lake, I don’t think the Border Integrity team at Federal Serious and Organized Crime has ever truly continued paying attention,” the source said. “That’s why DEA and others are so pissed with the RCMP—not truly following up, not looking at the details. That corridor has been known for years.”

For Canadian intelligence veterans watching the pattern, the explanation points to more than simple organized crime. “This is for years to come,” one source said. “You set things in place in environments you can monitor, inside and out. Thinking like special forces—you pick the high ground, the environment where you can survey everything around you to maintain the integrity and safety of your product. That’s why the corridor is so special to organized crime. You can do that there.”

While these properties—and the alleged helicopter missions they support into the United States—offer a visceral glimpse of the threat posed by Chinese transnational networks engaged in poly-narcotics trafficking and money laundering, the deeper, state-linked financial architecture behind them is best illustrated by the RCMP’s startling findings. Investigators uncovered a global laundering network rooted in Vancouver-area brokerage houses, discreetly embedded in residential neighborhoods. These firms are tied to large-acreage land acquisitions across British Columbia used to cultivate cannabis for Asian organized crime.

Beneath the surface, authorities believe these operations fuel a broader system of poly-drug laundering, narcotics transshipment to other nations concealed within Canadian consumer exports, and coordination with Beijing’s foreign influence apparatus.

The Bureau will report next in this series on a groundbreaking investigation into the United Front brokerage system—an apparatus that facilitated narcotics trafficking from British Columbia into New York City and laundered drug proceeds from the United States back to Sam Gor and United Front networks in Vancouver.

There is mounting evidence that this same system—leveraging “legal” cannabis operations and money laundering brokerages tied to crime figures associated with Chinese consulate diplomats—is now suspected of operating not only in British Columbia but also in Ontario, with transnational reach into multiple U.S. states, including Maine.

Yet only fragments of evidence in official Canadian files hint at the “interoperability” between Chinese narco networks and the United Front Work Department, including its political influence arms.

British Columbia and Ontario have emerged as key battlegrounds where Chinese interference and triad-linked organized crime networks have deeply penetrated society. According to Canadian and U.S. experts who spoke with The Bureau, this includes the integration of the Sam Gor syndicate with Beijing’s intelligence and foreign influence apparatus, operating under the umbrella of the United Front Work Department.

Due to the sensitivity of the matter, the only expert identified in interviews is David Asher, who stated that the U.S. government views the United Front as the envelope surrounding China’s underground banking and financial networks—the same networks believed to have infiltrated TD Bank in Toronto.

Multiple Canadian police sources across British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario confirmed that Chinese diplomats have been observed meeting with senior figures in Asian Organized Crime, including actors tied to the 30-acre “farm” property on the U.S. border near Cultus Lake.

The only known record pointing to official Canadian acknowledgment of these networks was first obtained by Global News in its reporting on Beijing’s Fox Hunt operations. The document—drafted at the request of B.C.’s Solicitor General in 2023—prompted the RCMP to prepare a classified briefing for Premier David Eby’s government. The version released under Freedom of Information legislation was completely redacted and titled: “The People’s Republic of China: Foreign Actor Influence Undertaken by the Chinese Communist Party / United Front Work Department & Interoperability with Transnational Organized Crime.”

Editor’s note: Come back to read The Bureau’s exclusive, paywalled investigation into United Front brokerage houses and illicit grow-ops—operations powered by exploited illegal immigrants.

Sam Cooper

In striking remarks delivered days after Canada’s federal election, former longtime Liberal MP John McKay suggested that threats from President Donald Trump helped propel Prime Minister Mark Carney to power—and warned that Canada is entering a period of “existential” uncertainty. He likened the threat posed by Trump’s second term to the peril Taiwan faces from China’s Xi Jinping.

“This was the most consequential election of my lifetime,” said McKay, who did not seek re-election this year after serving as a Liberal MP since 1997. “I would always say, ‘This is the most important election of your lifetime,’ and usually I was right. But this time—I was really right. This one was existential.”

Explaining his assertion, McKay added: “I was thinking of the alienating and irritating comments by a certain president that Canada should become the 51st state. We should actually send President Trump a thank-you card for his stimulus to Canadian patriotism, which has manifested itself in so many different ways. Who knew that shopping at Loblaws would become a patriotic act?”

The Toronto-area MP, who has made several visits to Taiwan over the past two decades, drew a controversial comparison between how Taiwan faces the constant threat of invasion and how Canada is now confronting an increasingly unreliable United States under the influence of Trump-era nationalism.

McKay was the first speaker at an event co-hosted by the Government of Taiwan and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, focused on the People’s Republic of China’s growing use of “lawfare”—legal and bureaucratic tactics designed to pressure Western governments into accepting Beijing’s One China Policy and denying Taiwan’s sovereignty. While China’s claims over Taiwan may appear to have gained tacit acceptance at the United Nations, U.S. expert Bonnie Glaser later clarified that Beijing’s position is far from settled law. The issue, she said, remains open to interpretation by individual governments and is shaped by evolving geopolitical interests. Glaser, a leading authority on Indo-Pacific strategy, added that subtle but meaningful shifts during both the first and second Trump administrations are signaling a quiet departure from Beijing’s legal framing.

“Our institutions are being bullied—that they will be denied involvement with the U.N. unless they accept that Taiwan is a province of China,” Glaser said.

McKay, framing most of his comments on the past election, argued Canadians now face subtle but real consequences when engaging with American products and institutions. He argued that Canada can no longer assume the United States will act as a reliable partner on defense or foreign policy. “Maybe a few weeks or months ago, we could still count on the security umbrella of the United States,” he said. “That is no longer true—and the Prime Minister has made that abundantly clear.”

Predicting that Prime Minister Mark Carney “may be a very unpopular politician within six months,” McKay warned Canadians to prepare for a period of sacrifice and difficult decisions: “We’re not used to asserting our sovereignty. Taiwan lives that reality every single day.”

Citing Canada’s pivot toward new defense arrangements—including the recent purchase of over-the-horizon radar from Australia instead of the United States—McKay said the country is entering a new era of security realignment. “New alliances, new consequences, new changes,” he said. “This will create some real disturbing issues.”

He contrasted China’s strategic approach with the erratic behavior of the United States under Trump: “President Xi conducts the trade war like a chess match—methodical, searching for new alliances. Our supposed security partner conducts it like flip-gut,” McKay said, referring to a children’s game he plays with his grandchildren. “Sometimes the piece turns over, sometimes it falls off the table. But the one guarantee is—there is no guarantee.”

Another speaker, Professor Scott Simon of the University of Ottawa, took a far sharper stance on Beijing’s role in the increasingly volatile geopolitical environment, describing China as part of a “new axis of evil” engaged in cognitive warfare targeting both Taiwan and Canada.

“We have to be part of the alliance of good,” Simon said. “China is part of that axis of evil. We have to be honest about that.”

Drawing on recent global crises—including the war in Ukraine and the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel—Simon argued that democracies like Canada have lulled themselves into a false sense of security by believing that trade and engagement would neutralize authoritarian threats.

“For the past 40 years, we’ve been very complacent,” he said.

Expanding on Beijing’s tactics, Simon said: “They’re active against the Philippines, South Korea, Japan—and Taiwan is only part of it. What they’re using now is a combination of military threats—what we often call gray zone operations—but also cognitive and psychological warfare, as well as lawfare. And they use these techniques not just in Taiwan, but in Canada. And so Canada has to be a part of countering that lawfare.”