espionage
Breaking: Hogue Commission Will Hear From New Safety-Protected Witnesses On PRC Targeting of Chinese Candidates
Hogue Finds Witnesses Face Credible Threats, Records Will Be Sealed for 99 Years
In an extraordinary move, Canada’s foreign interference inquiry will hear testimony from two new secret witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the People’s Republic of China’s influence operations targeting electoral candidates and community associations in Canada. Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue announced the decision today, weeks after the public testimony phase concluded, revealing that the witnesses—identified only as Person B and Person C—face credible threats to their safety and that of their families due to their insights into how Beijing’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) targets Chinese Canadian politicians and community associations.
The witnesses’ identities and testimonies will be closely guarded, with only sanitized summaries made available to the public and participants. According to Hogue’s decision, Person B has provided critical insight into the UFWD’s tactics, describing how Beijing’s agents “co-opt and leverage some Chinese Canadian community associations and politicians of Chinese origin” to advance PRC interests. Much of Person B’s information is firsthand, Hogue’s decision states, suggesting the witness could produce explosive evidence relevant to high-profile cases under examination for Hogue’s final report in December.
Both witnesses expressed profound concerns about the consequences they could face if Beijing discovered their identities. Person C, in particular, described the likelihood of “threats to their physical safety, intimidation and harassment by PRC officials or sympathetic community members in Canada, and the potential loss of their employment” should their cooperation with the Commission become known. Person B similarly voiced fears of “serious repercussions,” including community ostracization and job loss, if their identity were disclosed. “This fear is based, in part, on the fact that the PRC and its United Front Work Department has infiltrated some Chinese Canadian community associations,” Hogue’s decision states.
In light of the witnesses’ statements and intelligence on PRC activities, Commission counsel deemed the witnesses’ concerns “credible.” Commissioner Hogue emphasized the necessity of these safety measures, stating, “I am satisfied by the information contained in the application that the fears expressed by Person B and Person C are not only credible, but also compelling. In light of other information that the Commission has received about the tactics of the PRC, including transnational repression, I am satisfied that the concerns expressed by Person B and Person C are reasonable.”
The extraordinary protective measures will allow the witnesses to provide their statements confidentially via affidavits, sealed for 99 years, marking an exceptional step to protect those revealing sensitive information on state actors. Commissioner Hogue further elaborated that the witnesses’ evidence is crucial to understanding the extent of Beijing’s operations in Canada but could not be accessed without protective guarantees.
Hogue’s decision marks a rare departure from standard inquiry practices, reflecting what she described as Canada’s duty to protect those who risk their safety to expose foreign influence.
Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch, which has made submissions seeking the disclosure of cabinet-protected documents in the Commission, said he welcomes the Inquiry’s decision to hear from important new witnesses.
“It’s good to see the Inquiry continue to gather evidence about foreign interference activities, especially given that its hearings in the spring and fall left many questions unanswered, mainly because the Inquiry called witnesses mostly from government and political parties who have an interest in covering up interference, loopholes, and weak enforcement,” he said.
But Conacher reiterated his reservations about the overall lack of transparency in the Commission’s proceedings and what he calls loopholes in Canada’s laws against foreign influence.
“The only way to stop foreign interference is to effectively prevent it, and it will only be prevented by closing huge loopholes in laws across Canada that allow for secret, undemocratic and unethical spending, fundraising, donations, loans, lobbying, and disinformation campaigns by foreign ‘proxies,’ and by strengthening enforcement and penalties,” he said. “Hopefully, the Hogue Inquiry will strongly recommend closing all these loopholes and strengthening enforcement and penalties.”
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espionage
Inside Xi’s Fifth Column: How Beijing Uses Gangsters to Wage Political Warfare in Taiwan — and the West
A new Jamestown Foundation report details how China’s Ministry of State Security and allied triads have been used to subvert Taiwan’s democracy as part of Beijing’s united front.
Editor’s Note
The Bureau has previously reported on how Chinese state-linked crime networks have exploited Canada’s real estate market, casinos, and diaspora associations, often under the cover of united front work. One of these groups, the Chinese Freemasons, has been linked to meetings with Canadian politicians, as reported by The Globe and Mail ahead of the 2025 federal election. The Globe noted that the Toronto chapter explicitly advocates for the “peaceful reunification of Taiwan.” The Jamestown Foundation’s new findings on groups active in Taiwan — including the Chinese Freemasons, also known as the Hongmen, the related Bamboo Union triad, and the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) — show that Taiwan is the epicenter of a strategy also visible, though less intensively, across democracies including the United States. The parallels — from Vancouver to Sydney to New York to Taipei — should alert governments that the “fifth column” problem is international, and it is growing.
TAIPEI — At a banquet in Shenzhen more than two decades ago, Chang An-lo — the Bamboo Union boss known as “Big Brother Chang” or “White Wolf” — raised a glass to one of the Communist Party’s princelings. His guest, Hu Shiying, was the son of Mao Zedong’s propaganda chief. “Big Brother Chang,” Hu reportedly toasted him, an episode highlighted in a new report from the Jamestown Foundation.
Hu would later be described by Australian journalist John Garnaut as an “old associate of Xi Jinping.” That link — through Hu and other princelings Chang claimed to have met — placed the Bamboo Union leader within the orbit of Party elites. Garnaut also reported that the Ministry of State Security (MSS) had used the Bamboo Union to channel lucrative opportunities to Taiwanese politicians. According to Jamestown researcher Martin Purbrick, a former Royal Hong Kong Police intelligence officer, such episodes show how the CCP has systematically co-opted Taiwanese organized crime as part of its united front strategy.
“The long history of links between the CCP and organized crime groups in Taiwan,” Purbrick writes, “shows that United Front strategy has embedded itself deeply into Taiwan’s political life.”
Chang’s global influence is not a relic of the past. The Bureau reported, drawing on leaked 1990s Canadian immigration records, that intelligence indicated Chang’s triad had effectively “purchased” the state of Belize, on Mexico’s southern border, for use in smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States. But Chang is more relevant than ever as fears of Beijing invading Taiwan grow. In August 2025, seated in his Taipei office before a PRC flag, he appeared on a YouTube program to deny he led any “fifth column.” Instead, he insisted Taiwan must “embrace” Beijing and cast himself as a “bridge for cross-strait peace.”
His denial came just months after Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice accused CUPP of acting as a political front for organized crime and foreign interference. Police suspected more than 130 members of crimes ranging from homicide to drug trafficking. Prosecutors charged CUPP operatives with taking $2.3 million from the CCP to fund propaganda. In January, the Ministry of the Interior moved to dissolve the party outright, submitting the case to Taiwan’s Constitutional Court. By March, a Kaohsiung court sentenced CUPP deputy secretary-general Wen Lung and two retired military officers for recruiting Taiwanese personnel on behalf of the PRC. According to court filings, Wen had been introduced by Chang to the Zhuhai Taiwan Affairs Office, which in turn connected him to a PLA liaison officer.
President Lai Ching-te, in a March national security address, warned that Beijing was attempting to “divide, destroy, and subvert us from within.” Intelligence assessments in Taipei describe the Bamboo Union and CUPP as part of a potential “fifth column,” prepared to foment unrest and manipulate opinion in the event of an invasion.
The historical record shows why Taipei is so concerned. Chang’s name has shadowed some of Taiwan’s darkest chapters. In the 1980s, he was suspected of involvement in the assassination of dissident writer Henry Liu in California. He was later convicted of heroin smuggling in the United States, serving ten years in prison. After returning to Taiwan, he fled again in 1996 when authorities sought his arrest, spending 17 years in Shenzhen. During those years, he cultivated ties with influential Party families. At the Shenzhen banquet, Washington Post journalist John Pomfret wrote, Hu Shiying introduced him as “Big Brother Chang,” signaling acceptance in elite circles. Garnaut, writing over a decade later, noted that Hu was an “old associate of Xi Jinping” and that Chang had moved comfortably among other princelings, including sons of a former CCP general secretary and a top revolutionary general.
These connections translated into political capital. When Chang returned to Taiwan in 2013, he launched the China Unification Promotion Party — a pro-Beijing group openly advocating “one country, two systems.” He declared his mission was to “cultivate red voters.” CUPP cadres and Bamboo Union affiliates became visible in street politics, clashing with independence activists and disrupting rallies. During U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 2021 visit, they staged counter-protests echoing Beijing’s line.
The ideological warfare runs even deeper. A Phoenix TV segment from 2011 recalled how a Bamboo Union elder declared in 1981 that he “would rather the CCP rule Taiwan than have Taiwan taken away by Taiwan independents.” Chang himself has echoed this sentiment for decades. In 2005, he launched a Guangzhou-based group called the Defending China Alliance, later rebranded in Taipei as CUPP. His activism has spanned disruptive protests, nationalist rallies, and propaganda campaigns amplified through China-linked media channels.
Purbrick situates these developments within a wider united front playbook. Taiwanese triads and Chinese Freemason associations are courted as grassroots mobilizers, intermediaries, and psychological enforcers. A recent report from the Washington Post has also linked the Chinese Freemasons to the powerful 14K Triad, a global network deeply implicated in Chinese underground banking networks accused of laundering fentanyl proceeds for Mexican cartels through the United States. The triad–Hongmen nexus complements other CCP efforts: online influence campaigns, cultural outreach, and intelligence recruitment inside Taiwan’s military.
The implications extend beyond Taiwan. In Canada, Australia, the United States, Southeast Asia, and beyond, intelligence agencies have documented how PRC-linked triads launder drug profits, fund political donations, and intimidate diaspora critics. These groups benefit from tacit state protection: their criminality overlooked so long as they advance Beijing’s strategic objectives. It is hybrid warfare by stealth — not soldiers storming beaches, but criminal syndicates reshaping politics from within.
For Taiwan, the Bamboo Union and CUPP remain immediate threats. For other democracies, they serve as case studies of how united front tactics adapt across borders. President Lai’s warning that Beijing seeks to “create the illusion that China is governing Taiwan” resonates internationally.
Before leaving journalism to establish an advisory firm, John Garnaut himself became entangled in the political fallout of his reporting. He was sued by a Chinese-Australian real estate developer from Shenzhen, who had funneled large donations to Australian political parties. The developer, later publicly implicated in the case by an Australian lawmaker under parliamentary privilege, successfully sued Garnaut for defamation in 2019. Subsequent disclosures confirmed the tycoon’s implication in an FBI indictment involving United Nations influence schemes and notorious Chinese operative Patrick Ho, later linked to a Chinese oil conglomerate accused of targeting the Biden family in influence operations. Together, these episodes highlight the global reach of united front networks.
espionage
Ghislaine Maxwell Proffer: A Daughter Acknowledges Her Father’s Espionage Shadows but Denies Epstein’s Sex-Blackmail Op Rumors
In July 2025, inside a sealed Justice Department conference room in Tallahassee, Ghislaine Maxwell spoke at length about her life with Jeffrey Epstein. Across two days of questioning, she confronted the themes that now shadow the American administration and some of the world’s most powerful men: was her father, Robert Maxwell, the root of a sprawling intelligence operation—one that extended through his daughter’s relationship with the mysteriously wealthy Epstein and reached leaders from Prince Andrew to Bill Clinton and even Donald Trump?
The session was not a cooperation deal or plea bargain but a proffer under limited immunity. Prosecutors could impeach Maxwell if she later contradicted herself.
Maxwell sat with her lawyers. Across the table were Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Special Agent Spencer Horn, and Deputy U.S. Marshal Mark Beard. Their questions probed Epstein’s fortune, his circle of elites, the persistent intelligence rumors, and his death.
On Friday afternoon, the Justice Department released hundreds of pages of partially redacted transcripts and audio recordings from the interviews. The White House presented this as a gesture of transparency amid backlash from Trump’s base and criticism from Democrats. The redactions, though extensive in places, still allowed readers to follow the central exchanges.
The closest Maxwell came to portraying Epstein as involved in anything “covert” or “nefarious” was in a curious recollection: “He showed me a photograph of himself with African warlords… He said he was in the business of finding stolen money for billionaires. He would take a percentage of what he recovered.”
Did Maxwell—who has already been convicted of perjury—lie again to shield powerful friends?
One exchange, centering on perhaps the most notorious and publicly recognized piece of evidence in the Epstein saga, suggests she may have.
Blanche: “The photograph of Prince Andrew with Virginia Giuffre has been described as one of the most consequential pieces of evidence. How do you respond?”
Maxwell: “It’s manufactured. Literally a fake photo. My London flat was too small to host such an encounter, and the date on the back doesn’t match flight logs. My friendship with Andrew made him trust Epstein more, but I had nothing to do with that picture.”
On Robert Maxwell and Intelligence
Blanche: “With respect to your father, there have been multiple questions about whether he worked for any intelligence agency. Do you have any knowledge about that?”
Maxwell: “I think—well certainly my father had a background in intelligence… I believe he did in the second World War. He was… a British intelligence officer. I think that… once you’ve been an intelligence officer, you’re kind of—always; it doesn’t mean that you’re formally employed.”
She added she had “no formal knowledge” of specific activities, but believed he “did help people.”
On whether Robert Maxwell ever introduced her to Epstein, she was emphatic: “They never met… I know they never met.” She said her father vetted Epstein through Bear Stearns leaders “Jimmy Cayne and… Ace Greenberg.”
Maxwell’s words were cautious, but telling. She essentially confirmed what intelligence veterans often describe: once active in that world, many never fully leave. By her account, her father lived as a businessman and politician but remained an informal node in intelligence—“trading business or ideas” with powerful people and institutions.
This amounts to an acknowledgment: Robert Maxwell lived and died inside the world of intelligence. His role as publisher, financier, and political broker likely made him a valuable cutout, and that was likely a profitable arrangement for his family. Plausible reporting over decades has strongly supported ties to MI6 and Mossad. The most persistent allegations involve the sale of bugged PROMIS software to U.S. government agencies on behalf of Israel’s Mossad, and financial dealings with Soviet bloc actors. None of these claims have been proven in court. But the limited comments of Ghislaine Maxwell suggest she knew her father’s business well.
On Epstein, Mossad, CIA, and the FBI
Blanche: “Have you ever had any contact… from Mossad…?”
Maxwell: “Well, not deliberately… Not deliberately.”
Blanche: “Did you ever think that Mr. Epstein was getting any money from any intelligence agency, including Mossad?”
Maxwell: “Well, I don’t believe so, but I wouldn’t know. I mean, I would be very surprised if he did. I don’t think so. No.”
Horn: “CIA? DIA?”
Maxwell: “I don’t think so. I just don’t think he had the wherewithal, and I think that whole aspect is bullshit.”
Her denials stand in contrast with reasonably credible, though not court-validated, media reporting. In 2019, journalist Vicky Ward reported in The Daily Beast that a former White House official said they had heard Alexander Acosta—then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who handled Epstein’s 2007 plea deal at the end of the George W. Bush presidency—tell Trump transition interviewers in 2017: “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to ‘leave it alone,’” adding that Epstein was “above his pay grade.”
Epstein’s Suspicious Wealth
Blanche: “How did Epstein make his money?”
Maxwell: “He started as a math teacher at Dalton. From there he was hired by Bear Stearns… At Bear Stearns, he developed some new type of trading system—a trading vehicle. Then, after a disagreement, he left. That’s when he said he was in the business of finding stolen money for billionaires. He would take a percentage of what he recovered. But I was not part of his business world, except tangentially.”
She identified “very important clients”: Les Wexner—for whom Epstein “structured or restructured The Limited,” handled “his entire personal finances,” and “all of the investment strategy” (she speculated the 71st-Street townhouse, the vast Upper East Side mansion that became Epstein’s New York base, factored into compensation); Leon Black—“the same as what he did for Wexner”; another connected female in their circle provided the—“same help in business,” and even “contracts for the maids”; and there was an unnamed wealthy Ohio woman with “the largest Klein painting.”
Rumors have long swirled that Epstein’s fortune was less about finance and more about leverage — that his friendships with billionaires, politicians, and world leaders provided opportunities for kompromat, even blackmail. Investigators, journalists, and critics have speculated that his homes may have doubled as “honey traps,” recording powerful men in compromising situations to secure influence.
On blackmail: “Never. No… I thought he was a legitimate businessman, very conscientious, very good at math.”
On Clinton, Trump, Barak, and Movie Stars
Blanche: “You’ve been named on flight logs with President Clinton. How would you describe his relationship with Mr. Epstein?”
Maxwell: “President Clinton was my friend. Not Epstein’s… Clinton traveled on Epstein’s plane twenty-six times, or whatever the flight logs say. I was there. He never received a massage. I never saw anything improper.”
Blanche: “Did you ever see Mr. Clinton participate in massages or any improper behavior with young women?”
Maxwell: “No. Never. I was there. He never received a massage. I never saw anything improper.”
On specifics, she described joint travel:
- Cuba, where she said Clinton met Fidel Castro.
- Italy, a Vatican visit with Clinton aide Mark Middleton and Middleton’s wife to see Henry VIII’s divorce documents.
- Africa, where Clinton flew with Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey aboard Epstein’s jet.
She also volunteered: “I was very central in the ramp-up [of] the Clinton Global Initiative” and suggested Epstein “may have helped me help them” financially—without details.
Blanche: “What about Donald Trump? Your name and his are often linked through Epstein.”
Maxwell: “My father knew Trump. I admired him… Trump was never inappropriate with anybody. Never.”
Blanche: “Did you ever see Mr. Trump at Epstein’s homes or on his planes?”
Maxwell: “No. I never saw anything like that. I never saw him in any improper context with Epstein.”
Horn: “We’ve seen reports of Epstein’s relationship with Ehud Barak. Given your father’s deep ties to Israel, what was your impression of that connection?”
Maxwell: “I can think of Ehud Barak, yes. But I don’t know the details of their relationship. My father loved Israel, so I pay attention to it. We have ties to Israel. But I can’t tell you more.”
On the “Black Book”
Blanche: “Was there a client list? A black book of names?”
Maxwell: “There is no list. We’ll start with that… Nothing like that.”
On Epstein’s Prison Death
Maxwell said she does not believe Epstein killed himself, but also rejected the idea that he was silenced to protect powerful figures.
“I do not believe he died by suicide, no,” Maxwell said.
When asked if she had any theory about who might have killed him, she replied, “I don’t.” Pressed further on whether she thought Epstein was murdered to “keep him quiet” because he had information about “rich and powerful people,” she answered, “I do not have any reason to believe that.”
“And I also think it’s ludicrous,” she added, noting that if such people had wanted him dead, “they would’ve had plenty of opportunity when he wasn’t in jail.”
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