Sam Cooper

An element overlooked in previous analyses of Natterjack may be its most damning: the complete absence of an organizing vision across Canada’s security and intelligence arms.

As Ottawa faces mounting pressure from Washington to respond to fentanyl trafficking, human smuggling, and terror threats stemming from a convergence of Chinese Communist operatives and transnational mafias from Mexico and Iran, a fresh assessment of Canada’s policing strategy and governance reveals the stunning absence of a “Criminal Intelligence Committee to deal with a number of intelligence policy and related issues”—while simultaneously raising troubling doubts about the RCMP’s capacity to prioritize, analyze, and target serious threats free from political influence.

The Bureau’s comparative analysis is based on a sweeping 2024 external review of the RCMP’s response to the pandemic-era “freedom convoy,” which suggests Canada’s federal police force—working for “clients” who do not understand or value how intelligence should shape decision-making—bent under severe political pressure, compromising its intelligence collection and reporting integrity, and helping execute an unprecedented crackdown on citizens’ financial freedoms during the winter 2022 protests in Ottawa.

The 92-page report, produced under a post-operation initiative called Project Natterjack, paints a portrait of intelligence breakdowns, governance failure, and inappropriate political influence—particularly from senior officials in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government. The review, first obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, included survey responses from 1,641 RCMP officers and personnel deployed during the protests, which paralyzed downtown Ottawa and disrupted key international border crossings.

Yet an element overlooked in previous analyses of Natterjack may be its most damning: the complete absence of an organizing vision across Canada’s security and intelligence arms.

This structural vacuum comes at a time when the national security threats facing Canada are increasingly hybridized—blending terrorism, organized crime, election interference, cyber warfare, and financial infiltration. These are precisely the kinds of threats Washington is now pressing Ottawa to address, including investigations into fentanyl superlabs and hostile networks tied to the Chinese Communist Party, Mexican cartels, and Iranian and Russian threat actors.

Amid what the U.S. government sees as a growing vulnerability that Ottawa has failed to address in coordination with Washington under Trudeau’s Liberals, the Natterjack report highlights a deeply relevant structural failure in Canadian policing.

Regarding the “freedom convoy,” the review’s most serious suggestion is that RCMP intelligence officers felt pressured to present the protests through the lens of “ideologically motivated violent extremism”—a national security framework typically reserved for terrorism investigations. Intelligence teams were subjected to hourly briefing demands from federal officials and were forced to issue rapid assessments under tight timelines, with resulting reports often presenting skewed or misattributed findings.

“Interviewees also indicated that there were issues with information and intelligence that was disseminated to external Government of Canada agencies,” the report states. “Specifically, some Government of Canada partners would misrepresent the information or misattribute third-party information as RCMP information… Interviewees and survey respondents felt immense pressure from the Government of Canada to be briefed on a regular basis… in particular when briefings were requested on an hourly basis.”

As the review notes bluntly: “When there is that much pressure to produce a report within an hour or a few hours’ time, it is not productive.”

Taken together, the findings paint a sobering portrait of a federal police force struggling to preserve its independence and credibility under political strain. While officers were deployed to confront a disruptive but largely peaceful protest, critics inside and outside government have pointed to the RCMP’s relative inaction toward far more dangerous networks—namely, fentanyl trafficking cartels, Chinese underground banking structures linked to the same political influence operations involved in federal election interference, intelligence-connected money laundering syndicates, and hostile state-sponsored actors operating inside Canada.

One telling passage indicating a scramble within RCMP command to produce findings on ideological extremism—whether fully valid or not—reads: “Ideologically Motivated Criminal Intelligence Team and the Joint Intelligence Group were both operating to provide the strategic threat picture, and reaching in directly to the Divisions for intelligence updates. As such, some interviewees noted that they were inundated by requests for intelligence updates from different intelligence teams at National Headquarters.”

In parallel, the federal cabinet invoked the Emergencies Act—suspending civil liberties and activating sweeping enforcement powers that allowed financial institutions to freeze protestors’ bank accounts. Between February 15 and 23, 2022, the RCMP’s Federal Policing Criminal Operations Financial Crimes Unit made 57 disclosures to banks and other institutions, targeting 62 individuals and 17 businesses for asset freezes.

The report pointedly states: “The act of participating in a demonstration is not in itself a form of ideologically motivated violent extremism.” Yet that nuance appeared largely lost amid the political urgency to classify the protests as a national threat.

Interviewees also noted limitations in their ability to disseminate protected information and intelligence to certain external agencies and private financial institutions. Specifically, they indicated that encryption was not consistently available across these external channels.

Perhaps most revealingly, the review found that senior officials—referred to as intelligence “clients”—did not appear to value intelligence or allow it to meaningfully guide decision-making during the crisis. “Interviewees and survey respondents expressed the need to educate intelligence clients on the value of intelligence and how it can be used for decision making,” the report notes. “Interviewees noted that the role of intelligence was not valued during the convoy-related events.” The admission sits uneasily beside the broader findings: that RCMP intelligence was not only shaped to support a political narrative that exaggerated the role of ideological extremism in the protests, but ultimately sidelined when it failed to serve that narrative.

The report also paints a picture that fits with a serious assertion previously conveyed to The Bureau by an RCMP source: that in the days following the convoy’s dispersal, investigators felt they were pressured to reconstruct investigative timelines to match political expectations—to sustain a national security narrative even when the underlying evidence did not necessarily meet threshold.

The Emergencies Act was revoked after just nine days. In January 2024, a federal judge ruled that the Trudeau government’s invocation of the Act was both unnecessary and unlawful, concluding that the legal threshold for a national emergency had not been met.

According to the review, RCMP officials shared protected personal information with financial institutions using processes that lacked consistent legal oversight. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner raised formal concerns, citing the RCMP’s reliance on open-source and social media research to flag individuals—many of whom had no demonstrated connection to criminal activity.

The Natterjack review further confirms that RCMP intelligence operations during the protests were defined by duplication, confusion, and political interference. At least three separate intelligence units—the Ideologically Motivated Criminal Intelligence Team, the Combined Intelligence Group, and the Joint Intelligence Group—were simultaneously tasked with protest reporting, resulting in overlapping and sometimes circular intelligence products. RCMP sources said the structure was unsustainable and exacerbated by National Headquarters’ failure to provide unified command or governance.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, in a televised interview that sent shockwaves through Washington, Ottawa, and Victoria, FBI Director Kash Patel warned that a new axis of global threat actors—consisting of Chinese Communist Party operatives, Iranian proxies, and Mexican cartel networks—is exploiting Canada’s lax border enforcement, immigration systems, and critical infrastructure in Vancouver to move fentanyl and terror suspects into the United States.

“Where’s all the fentanyl coming from still? Where are all the narco traffickers going to keep bringing this stuff into the country? The northern border,” Patel said. “Our adversaries have partnered up with the CCP and others—Russia, Iran—on a variety of different criminal enterprises. And they’re going and they’re sailing around to Vancouver and coming in by air.”

Patel’s public assessment aligns disturbingly well with the key findings of a Bureau investigation first published in August 2024. That report, based on testimony and documentary evidence from former Canada Border Services Agency officer Luc Sabourin, warned that systemic corruption and compromised enforcement at Canada’s ports of entry had already created the kind of vulnerabilities now cited by the FBI.

Sam Cooper

Elevated production levels in Canada—particularly from highly sophisticated fentanyl “super laboratories,” such as the type dismantled by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in October 2024—pose a mounting concern.

A rising convergence of Chinese state-linked chemical suppliers, Mexican drug cartels, Chinese narcotics cash brokers operating across North America, and the emergence of Canadian fentanyl “super laboratories” has triggered new concerns for United States national security agencies, according to the latest threat assessment from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment, released Thursday, describes the crisis as a transnational system driven by industrial-scale synthetic drug production and laundering networks stretching from Guangdong to Sinaloa to Vancouver. While Mexican cartels remain the dominant traffickers of fentanyl and methamphetamine into the United States, the DEA names Canada for the first time as a growing supply-side threat.

Elevated production levels in Canada—particularly from highly sophisticated fentanyl “super laboratories,” such as the type dismantled by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in October 2024—pose a mounting concern.

The laboratory was uncovered in Falkland, British Columbia—a remote, mountainous region roughly midway between Vancouver and Calgary. While Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials released few details, law enforcement sources in both Canada and the United States confirmed to The Bureau that the raid was triggered by intelligence from the DEA.

According to these sources, the site forms part of a broader criminal convergence involving Chinese, Mexican, and Iranian networks operating across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. The Bureau’s sources indicate that the Falkland facility was connected to Chinese chemical exporters sanctioned by the United States Treasury, Iranian threat actors, and operatives from Mexican drug cartels.

The 80-page DEA assessment emphasizes that while fentanyl flows from Canada remain smaller in volume compared to Mexico, the potential for Canadian production to scale quickly is a major concern. United States officials warn that law enforcement crackdowns in Mexico could prompt traffickers to shift operations northward, where precursor chemical controls and policing pressures are widely seen as more permissive.

The fallout from the Falkland raid continues to expand. Investigations in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland are probing chemical importers tied to methamphetamine and fentanyl precursor shipments from China. Authorities are examining companies suspected of misrepresenting the commercial purpose and origin of these dual-use chemicals.

One case highlighted by the DEA underscores the scale and sophistication of cartel-linked financial operations. A multi-billion-dollar smuggling and laundering scheme—spanning petroleum, methamphetamine, and heroin—was discovered involving Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos. The criminal network, according to the report, funneled stolen crude oil into the United States and sold it to American energy firms using trade-based money laundering mechanisms. It was linked to senior figures in multiple cartels, including Sinaloa, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, La Familia Michoacana, and the Gulf Cartel.

“The investigation has determined that this black-market petroleum smuggling operation is the primary means by which the transnational criminal organization funds its networks,” the DEA report states. “It is estimated that Mexico is losing tens of billions in tax revenue annually, while simultaneously costing the United States oil and gas companies billions of dollars annually due to a decline in petroleum imports and exports during this same period.”

Officials describe the petroleum scheme as a major financial lifeline for cartel power, and say investigations are now expanding to examine American facilitators and corporate enablers.

The DEA further outlines how Chinese and Mexican actors evade international chemical controls through mislabeling, transshipment via third countries, and freight forwarding chains—some knowingly complicit, others unwittingly exploited. Precursor shipments often arrive in the United States or Canada under false declarations, before being diverted to clandestine laboratories in Mexico.

Distribution methods include air cargo, maritime freight, land couriers, and even border tunnels. Once drugs enter the United States, they are routed through interstate highways and distributed to urban markets by street-level dealers, many of whom are recruited through encrypted channels such as Snapchat and Telegram.

Another network detailed in the report illustrates a continent-wide money laundering system anchored by the Chinese underground banking model, with a central hub operating out of New York City. Drug proceeds from across the United States are funneled through marijuana cultivation fronts using nominee owners, casino laundering, and mortgage fraud. Sources familiar with Canadian enforcement files told The Bureau this laundering model mirrors, and is connected to, operations in Vancouver and Toronto, where Triad-linked criminal networks manage shell companies and real estate portfolios.

The report also outlines the extensive involvement of Chinese organized crime groups in illicit cannabis production—particularly in regions where recreational marijuana is legalized or poorly regulated. These groups now dominate marijuana cultivation and distribution in both Canada and the United States. They are producing what the DEA calls the most potent marijuana in the history of trafficking, with tetrahydrocannabinol content averaging between 25 and 30 percent.

These networks rely on a logistics model that spans the continent. Domestically grown cannabis is transported across the United States in personal vehicles, tractor-trailers, and rental trucks. Criminal groups move product from jurisdictions such as British Columbia, California, Ontario, Maine, Oklahoma and Oregon into other states and provinces. High-THC cannabis is also in high demand in international markets such as the United Kingdom, France, and Spain, with overseas shipments typically dispatched via air cargo or container shipping from Canadian ports.

The Bureau has reported extensively on how Triads and individuals linked to Chinese foreign influence efforts have acquired numerous residential and industrial and agricultural properties in British Columbia and Ontario—many of which were converted into covert cannabis grow operations. These properties are routinely purchased in cash, registered under nominee names, and later tied to underground banking flows. According to sources with access to United States enforcement files, the laundering architecture is identical to systems used to recycle fentanyl and methamphetamine profits through bulk cash pickups, informal transfer networks, and false invoicing in international trade.

Seizure statistics underscore the increasing scale and complexity of the fentanyl crisis. In 2024, United States authorities intercepted more than 61 million fentanyl pills, many disguised as prescription pharmaceuticals. Xylazine, a veterinary sedative, remains the most common fentanyl adulterant. But a new, far more powerful veterinary anesthetic—medetomidine—is now being detected in seized drug supplies. The Drug Enforcement Administration flags this trend as extremely dangerous, noting that medetomidine may be 200 to 300 times more potent than xylazine, posing life-threatening risks to drug users and first responders alike.

New data obtained by The Bureau illustrates the geography of fentanyl’s impact across the United States. A study analyzing overdose fatalities from 2018 to 2022, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, identifies Ohio as one of the states hardest hit by the synthetic opioid epidemic. The research, conducted by Georgia-based Bader Scott Injury Lawyers, found that Ohio averaged 40.8 overdose deaths per 100,000 residents—nearly 50 percent above the national average of 27.5. The state recorded an average of 4,795 overdose deaths per year during the five-year study period, peaking at 5,397 in 2021.

West Virginia had the highest overdose fatality rate, with an average of 65.9 deaths per 100,000 people, followed by Delaware, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Maryland. Other states in the top ten included Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Connecticut—all experiencing relentless waves of synthetic opioid deaths.

“These states have been particularly hard-hit by the opioid epidemic, facing challenges with prescription painkillers, heroin, and increasingly, synthetic opioids like fentanyl,” the study concludes. “A combination of socioeconomic factors, healthcare access limitations, and geographic challenges has created perfect conditions for this crisis across these regions.”