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.

By Peter Copeland & Cal Chrustie  for Inside Policy

Transnational organized crime is ‘no longer just criminal,’ it’s become a geopolitical weapon, says Chrustie.

As geopolitical tensions rise and domestic vulnerabilities deepen, Canada is increasingly being used as a conduit for foreign adversaries waging hybrid warfare against the United States and its allies.

From fentanyl pipelines and money laundering to campus radicalization and weak border enforcement, a concerning picture emerges of transnational organized crime (TOC) networks operating with strategic alignment to states like China, Iran, and others.

In this edition of Inside Policy, Peter Copeland, deputy director of domestic policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, sits down with Cal Chrustie, a former RCMP senior intelligence officer with deep experience in national security and transnational crime.

Chrustie tells Copeland that TOC is “no longer just criminal,” it’s become a geopolitical weapon.

“It’s about destabilizing communities, overwhelming public services, and hollowing out social cohesion,” says Chrustie.

He explains that Canada is not presently well-positioned to respond to this threat.

“Canada’s legal framework is designed for a domestic, rule-of-law environment,” he says. “It’s ill-suited to confront global adversaries who don’t play by those rules.”

Their wide-ranging conversation reveals the structural, legislative, and cultural weaknesses that have left Canada uniquely vulnerable to hybrid warfare and interconnected threats—and explores what a meaningful response might look like.

Copeland: Let’s start with fentanyl. In 2023, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration estimated over 70,000 fentanyl-related deaths. A growing number of precursor chemicals are sourced from China and routed through networks in Mexico and increasingly Canada. How is fentanyl trafficking being used strategically by foreign actors?

Chrustie: There’s no denying the scale of fentanyl production in Canada. It far outpaces our internal consumption. While there’s uncertainty around the volume reaching the U.S.—and certainly exaggerated claims by some Americans—we know Canadian labs are supplying Australia in large quantities. The broader concern is that we don’t know the extent of what’s crossing into the U.S. from Canada because we’re not meaningfully tracking it. That lack of visibility alone is a serious national security concern. Furthermore, the media focus has typically been China, China, China. While there are obvious signs of Chinese cartels in play, but what’s often dismissed is the role of Iranian networks.

Copeland: You touched on the issue of gaps in our understanding. At MLI, we’ve documented the minimal capacity we have at our borders—limited personnel, a very small percentage of containers and vehicles physically inspected, and mostly randomized or intelligence-led searches. Given these limitations, how can we even estimate the scale of fentanyl or other cross-border activity?

Chrustie: It’s a mistake to overly focus on the border. It’s a choke point, yes, but seizures there are often the result of intelligence generated far from the physical crossing—through complex global investigations, intelligence operations, surveillance, profiling, informants, machine learning. The U.S. has robust systems for this. Canada doesn’t. So, pointing to low seizure rates at the border as evidence of low trafficking activity is misleading and isn’t overly helpful in understanding the threat. It’s more relevant in understanding what we don’t know.

Copeland: We’ve proposed mandating more information-sharing from importers and exporters to support intelligence-based inspections. What are your thoughts on this approach?

Chrustie: Transparency helps, but you must consider the risk of compliance failure. If bad actors have infiltrated parts of the supply chain—shipping firms, port operators, truckers—then even detailed regulations won’t suffice without enforcement. Foreign state actors have the cyber capabilities to manipulate these systems too. It reinforces the need to address the problem systemically, not just tactically, and appreciate corruption and compromised systems are reality, not just a possibility.

Copeland: So, more than just piecemeal fixes?

Chrustie: Absolutely. We need a strategic, whole-of-society approach. Canada hasn’t yet conducted a serious intellectual review of why our system isn’t working. Political leaders fear what they’ll find, because it would demand systemic overhauls. These systems must take into consideration the broader threat activities and their interconnectivity with corruption, electoral interference, espionage, misinformation, and threat finance. Unfortunately, these connections are largely ignored, along with the strategic recognition that national security has a symbiotic relationship with economic security. If we were to take seriously the impact of national security on countless aspects of our social fabric—from crime, and social trust, to economic security—we would have a much more robust approach to transnational organized crime.

Copeland: Let’s take a step back. Most people probably picture transnational organized crime as gangs seeking profit, often disconnected from foreign governments. But you’ve argued that TOC is used by hostile states as a weapon in hybrid warfare. What does that mean, and how should we reframe our understanding?

Chrustie: Hybrid warfare is the blending of military and non-military means to weaken or destabilize a target. For hostile states, transnational crime is a tool—just like cyberattacks or disinformation. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea—the CRINKs—use TOC to raise money, create chaos, and undermine our institutions. TOC is no longer just criminal—it’s geopolitical.

Copeland: So the fentanyl flooding North America isn’t just a public health disaster—it’s also a weapon?

Chrustie: That’s right. It’s about destabilizing communities, overwhelming public services, and hollowing out social cohesion. Just like the Soviets used propaganda and the KGB used disinformation, modern adversaries use drugs, money laundering, and crime networks to erode their adversaries from within.

Copeland: Is Canada the main target, or are we a launchpad to attack the U.S. and our allies?

Chrustie: Both. Threat actors don’t view the Five Eyes or NATO countries in isolation—they see the alliance. So, attacks on Canada are also attacks on the U.S., Australia, the UK, and vice versa. They exploit Canada’s weaknesses, especially in places like Vancouver, where strategic assets such as ports, shipping companies and supply chain infrastructure are key hybrid warfare targets and impact the national and economic security of our allies. In the case of Vancouver, the intent is to target the US and Mexico (i.e. North America), through Vancouver-based assets as it’s a location of lower risk to operate in.

Copeland: You mentioned encrypted phone networks. Could you elaborate?

Chrustie: At one point, more encrypted communication companies linked to TOC and terrorist financers were based in Vancouver than anywhere else in the world. These platforms were used globally—by cartels, arms traffickers, terrorists, state proxies. That tells you all you need to know about how Canada is perceived by adversaries.

Copeland: What structural weaknesses are they exploiting?

Chrustie: First, we lack a national security strategy. Other countries—Australia, the U.S.—have all-of-government approaches. We don’t. Second, our institutions are siloed. Policing is on the front line, but CSIS, CBSA, military and CSE aren’t always integrated. Third, our systems—immigration, legal, financial—are outdated and easily gamed. Finally, there’s our culture: we’ve been complacent about national security.

Copeland: What does a serious strategy look like?

Chrustie: It starts with clear national priorities: identifying top threat actors (China, Iran, Russia, North Korea), coordinating agencies, aligning law enforcement and intelligence. It also means acknowledging our legal framework can’t always meet the challenge. Disruption and foreign operations—working with allies to stop threats before they reach our shores—will be critical.  Also, the historical paternalist approach of governments and bureaucrats—of “we know best, and we won’t discuss these issues in public, it’s too sensitive and we are the experts,”—I think that’s dated, and China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are the biggest fans of this arrogant and naïve thinking. We need to shift immediately, engage the communities, business leaders, the legal community, and others. The solutions are in the communities, not in the siloed offices of governments.

Copeland: That raises a point about legal constraints. Are you saying our rights framework is part of the challenge?

Chrustie: Yes. Canada’s legal framework is designed for a domestic, rule-of-law environment. It’s ill-suited to confront global adversaries who don’t play by those rules. We either need carve-outs with enhanced powers for TOC-related and foreign threat activities investigations, or we need to rely more on foreign-facing disruption efforts—working abroad, with allies and accept prosecutions are secondary in measuring success. We can’t pretend that our current legal framework is workable, as the threat actors have figured this out and are taking advantage of it.

Copeland: Let’s talk about antisemitism and extremism. In the past year, we’ve seen a sharp rise on university campuses. What’s driving it?

Chrustie: Some of it is ideological, but we’re ignoring the role of transnational organized crime and foreign money. Iranian networks, for example, have long been tied to money laundering and extremist financing. These aren’t disconnected trends. The same threat actors behind fentanyl and money laundering are often involved in radicalization efforts. These are the same networks aligned to China and the Mexican cartels; they don’t operate in boxes. An old school bureaucratic lens on terrorism from the middle east, or terrorist financing analysis from a regional lens, is placing Canadians and others at risk.

Copeland: You’re suggesting that protests, radical activism, even antisemitic incidents may be downstream of the same networks enabling fentanyl and laundering billions?

Chrustie: Exactly. We’re talking about convergence. These networks exploit every vulnerability—from public health to political discourse. Failing to connect the dots between TOC, extremism, and foreign interference means we’re always reacting too late. Let’s look at the historic HSBC case, in which hundreds of millions had been laundered by the Sinaloa cartel due to lax anti-money laundering compliance by the bank, resulting in a $1.9 billion fine being levied against it. The same cartel networks that emerged through the HSBC probe are engaged in Canada today. Experts need to focus on what they don’t know versus what they think they know—look at the strategic and historical activities, accept that we are not in the middle east and accept the complexities of TOC of other activities, including terrorism and extremism.

Copeland: Lastly Calvin, I want to talk about the big picture. Evidently, Canada is seen as an easy target by our adversaries. What structural weaknesses are they exploiting?

Chrustie: This is where I think about it in four layers: strategy, structure, systems, and culture.

First, strategy. We lack a cohesive, public national security strategy. Unlike the United States or Australia, Canada doesn’t clearly define TOC as a strategic national threat. We don’t have a single, unified doctrine coordinating our federal agencies—police, intelligence, border services, foreign affairs. And without that, every department works to its own mandate, and TOC thrives in those gaps. We need to name top threat actors—China, Iran, Russia, North Korea—and make their proxies part of the strategy. We also need to shift from a policing mindset to one focused on disruption and prevention, including operations overseas.

Second, structures. Right now, the RCMP is expected to shoulder most of the burden. But that’s unsustainable. We need an all-agency model—where the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), and Communications Security Establishment (CSE), the Department of Justice, Global Affairs, and others are all responsible for TOC enforcement and disruption. In the U.S., agencies are compelled to coordinate on TOC. In Canada, they’re siloed. And without a lead co-ordinating body or national TOC co-ordinator, those silos are growing.

Third, systems. Our legal system is outdated. Charter protections, disclosure rules from cases like Stinchcombe, and overly complex evidentiary requirements mean that complex cases fall apart or never get prosecuted. We also lack a dedicated foreign intelligence service like the CIA or MI6. Our immigration system is overwhelmed—there’s no way current vetting can match immigration volumes. And our financial system, particularly in real estate and casinos, has become a playground for laundered money. We need a legal and regulatory framework built for transnational threats, not 1980s-era domestic crime.

Fourth, culture. This is the most overlooked piece. Canadians are culturally indifferent to national security. We’ve taken a maternalistic approach—shielding the public from harsh realities, hoping to avoid panic or xenophobia. But that silence has allowed foreign actors to operate here with little resistance. Until we educate the public and foster a culture that values sovereignty and security, there will be no pressure to change the strategy, structure, or systems.

Copeland: Final thoughts?

Chrustie: We need to stop thinking of TOC as a law enforcement issue. It’s a military, intelligence, legal and most importantly, an all-Canada problem. There is no room for spectators.  We need to stop thinking its someone isolated from all other threats and threat actors. It’s a national security crisis and its part of the slow play to weaken our political, social, and economic structures. We are years behind our allies. If we don’t get serious—strategically, structurally, and culturally—we will pay the price.

Copeland: Here’s my takeaways: In summary, we can see that Canada is uniquely vulnerable to transnational organized crime which makes it vulnerable for the broader foreign threats. Our agencies are siloed, and we lack a comprehensive strategy to effectively address issues like drug and human trafficking, to the presence of radicalization and extremism on our campuses. What’s more, our legal framework is such that we don’t have the same kinds of tools as our allies, that allows law enforcement, military, and intelligence agencies to act swiftly where issues of national security are in play.

Peter Copeland is deputy director of domestic policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Cal Chrustie is a former RCMP senior intelligence officer with deep experience in national security and transnational crime.