Crime
Chinese Narco Suspect Caught in Private Meeting with Trudeau, Investigated by DEA, Linked to Panama, Caribbean, Mexico – Police Sources
Sam Cooper
Shocking new details are emerging about a major Chinese organized crime suspect who met privately with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to a police source who confirmed recent reporting from The Globe and Mail. The individual, Paul King Jin, is allegedly implicated in money laundering operations spanning the Western Hemisphere and has been a target of multiple failed major investigations in British Columbia. These investigations sought to unravel the complex interrelations of underground casinos and real estate investment, fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking, and financial crimes that allegedly funnel drug proceeds from diaspora community underground banks throughout North America and Latin America, with connections to Chinese and Hong Kong financial institutions.
The failed investigations into Jin have involved both the RCMP and U.S. agencies. These operations stretch from Vancouver to Mexico, Panama, and beyond, multiple sources confirm.
Repeated efforts to reach Jin for comment through his lawyer in the British Columbia Cullen Commission, which stemmed from investigative journalism exposing BC casino money laundering, have not been successful. Recent BC civil forfeiture filings seeking to seize alleged money laundering proceeds from Jin, with cases connecting 14 Vancouver homes to entities in Hong Kong and China, also indicate Jin has not been responsive through a lawyer.
Highlighting longstanding U.S. government concerns over the B.C. investigations and suspects like Jin, Mayor Brad West confirmed in exclusive interviews with The Bureau that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed dismay over Canada’s failure to successfully prosecute Jin and Chinese crime networks, specifically citing the collapse of the E-Pirate investigation. Reportedly Canada’s largest-ever probe into money laundering, E-Pirate fell apart in court after cooperating witnesses were exposed. One of the Chinese Triad narcotics traffickers targeted in E-Pirate surveillance, Richard Yen Fat Chiu, was found stabbed and burned to death near the Venezuelan border on June 20, 2019, according to Colombian news reports.
The Bureau has verified with a source possessing direct knowledge of Canadian policing failures that crucial intelligence regarding Sam Gor—a massive transnational crime syndicate—was provided to the RCMP by U.S. agencies yet failed to result in prosecutions.
One primary source confirmed a new detail reported by The Globe and Mail: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was entangled in an RCMP surveillance operation that targeted Paul Jin and the Sam Gor networks in Richmond, British Columbia. The Globe reported that early in his tenure, Trudeau met with Jin at a closed-door gathering at the Executive Inn Express Richmond, near Vancouver International Airport. Three sources corroborated the meeting according to The Globe, which took place between late 2015 and early 2017. Also present at the meeting was a Chinese army veteran with close ties to Beijing. The Globe noted that the veteran had attended social events with Chinese diplomats, reinforcing concerns about political and security risks posed by these associations.
The Bureau’s police source, who is independent of The Globe’s sources, confirmed they were aware of the RCMP surveillance operation that placed Trudeau, Jin, and the Chinese army veteran together in a private meeting.
Meanwhile, Jin himself has been surveilled in meetings with Chinese police officers who have traveled to Richmond, according to a separate police source with extensive knowledge of Chinese organized crime and influence operations in Canada. Two sources further stated that Jin continues to operate underground casino networks in Richmond, where law enforcement intelligence believes he has erected a mansion using front owners. Membership at this establishment is reportedly set at $100,000 for high-rollers.
According to a criminal intelligence source, Jin has alleged ties to China’s Ministry of Public Security and the network of clandestine Chinese police stations in British Columbia investigated by the RCMP. Two sources confirmed that Jin has allegedly acquired a new luxury mansion in Richmond, registered under a nominee—an established organized crime tactic.
“Jin uses one of his flunkies as a nominee for it. Common practice,” the source said. They further alleged that one of Jin’s associates tied to the mansion was implicated with Jin in a significant 2009 methamphetamine investigation. “Again, the use of nominees for real estate and businesses. Organized crime 101.”
Jin’s activities extend well beyond Canada, two sources alleged.
“He’s spending a lot of time in Latin America and the Caribbean,” a source said. “Asian organized crime is running amok. Foreign actor interference is getting really established. How it works is the current government welcoming any contributions from the motherland. What does this have to do with Asian organized crime in Canada? There’s a trade connection now from those areas in Latin America and the Caribbean to Canadian Asian organized crime commodity trades, primarily via the Maritimes.”
Jin has also been linked to international criminal networks, with two sources indicating that he and other high-level Canadian Triad associates have been traveling extensively to Panama and other Latin American jurisdictions. These movements align with intelligence connecting Canadian Triads to Mexican cartel operatives, facilitating narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and commodity smuggling into the United States.
Panama, which Trump administration State Secretary Marco Rubio has flagged as a hub of Chinese crime and state influence, has emerged as a focal point for Jin’s operations. “Jin was spending an awful lot more time down in Panama, where we think he is putting a lot of his capital there,” a source familiar with North American law enforcement investigations said. “They have the same kind of problem going on in Panama City as Vancouver, with all of the condo towers, and they’re empty. So people are plowing money into that place too.”
Adding to the concerns, a source disclosed that Jin’s travels to Panama raised red flags within international law enforcement circles. Jin flew from Vancouver to Toronto, then to Mexico City, Colombia, and finally Panama. Upon arrival, Panamanian customs flagged discrepancies in his travel documents, detecting an alternate identity. He was deemed inadmissible and promptly deported along the same route back to Canada.
“They said, ‘No, you’re inadmissible. Something’s wrong here. You’re traveling under this name, but we have you here as another person.’ So Panama punted him and sent him back exactly the same route, and we caught wind of this because of the liaison office down in Bogota,” the source, who could not be identified due to sensitivities in Canada, said. “And they let us know, and locally, the CBSA guys let the Toronto guys know because that’s where he would clear Canada Customs coming back. So they were like, ‘Okay, this is worthy of an interview.’ And they put a flag in the system and everything else.
“To make a long story short, it all fell flat. Nobody interviewed him. He just came right back—came right back to his place here in Vancouver. And so it just shows you the brokenness of our own system, that we can’t even get a key guy like that consistently checked and stopped, and he’s traveling under false papers.”
Jin’s expanding influence in Panama is a significant development aligning with Trump administration concerns, the source said, underscoring broader fears about China’s growing criminal and political footprint in the Western Hemisphere.
The Bureau previously reported that the latest BC civil forfeiture case—the fourth against Jin in three years—suggests he is actively evading British Columbia court procedures. Court filings state that after being banned from British Columbia casinos, Paul King Jin shifted his operations to illegal gaming houses, generating over $32 million in just four months in 2015. These underground casinos became a crucial node in a cash-based network fueling the proliferation of synthetic drugs across North America.
The case intensified in November 2022 when Everwell Knight Limited, a Hong Kong-registered entity holding mortgages on 14 disputed properties linked to Jin, sought to dismiss the government’s forfeiture claim on procedural grounds. Everwell’s legal team invoked the Canadian Charter of Rights—an increasingly common legal strategy in Canadian money laundering cases—arguing that the Director of Civil Forfeiture had failed to meet procedural requirements.
In April 2023, the Director of Civil Forfeiture responded with a default judgment application, contending that Jin’s failure to file a defense effectively conceded key allegations. The case also underscored Jin’s pattern of evasion, with the Director’s counsel noting that an unnamed lawyer initially suggested they might represent Jin but then ceased communication, leaving his legal status unresolved.
Regarding another key Sam Gor associate, E-Pirate target Richard Chiu—the Vancouver-area drug kingpin found burned and stabbed in 2019 near Cúcuta, a city close to the Colombian border with Venezuela—Chiu had previously been convicted in Massachusetts in 2002 for conspiracy to distribute and possess heroin.
According to B.C. Supreme Court documents, Chiu was the subject of multiple Vancouver police drug investigations. In 2017, during one such probe, authorities surveilled an Audi Q7 leased to him. Civil forfeiture filings state that police observed Chiu’s wife, Kimberly Chiu, exiting the vehicle while a “known gang associate” placed a heavy bag into the trunk.
Kimberly Chiu later became the subject of a civil forfeiture case after police seized $317,000 from the Audi—most of it packed in vacuum-sealed bundles inside a duffel bag. However, unlike other suspects, Richard Chiu was never criminally charged in Canada or directly sued by the director of civil forfeiture.
The government’s statement of claim alleged that Kimberly Chiu was “acting as a courier for Asian organized crime,” a claim she denied. In her defense, she argued that Vancouver police had no lawful grounds to detain or search her.
The collapse of E-Pirate and related Canadian law enforcement failures prompted then-B.C. Attorney General David Eby to launch a review, but it led to no legal reforms or policy changes in the province.
Crime
CBSA Bust Uncovers Mexican Cartel Network in Montreal High-Rise, Moving Hundreds Across Canada-U.S. Border
A court document cited by La Presse in prior reporting on the case.
The conviction targets Edgar Gonzalez de Paz, 37, a Mexican national identified in court evidence as a key organizer in a Montreal-based smuggling network that La Presse documented in March through numerous legal filings.
According to the Canada Border Services Agency, Gonzalez de Paz’s guilty plea acknowledges that he arranged a clandestine crossing for seven migrants on January 27–28, 2024, in exchange for money. He had earlier been arrested and charged with avoiding examination and returning to Canada without authorization.
Breaking the story in March, La Presse reported: “A Mexican criminal organization has established itself in Montreal, where it is making a fortune by illegally smuggling hundreds of migrants across the Canada-U.S. border. Thanks to the seizure of two accounting ledgers, Canadian authorities have gained unprecedented access to the group’s secrets, which they hope to dismantle in the coming months.”
La Presse said the Mexico-based organization ran crossings in both directions — Quebec to the United States and vice versa — through roughly ten collaborators, some family-linked, charging $5,000 to $6,000 per trip and generating at least $1 million in seven months.
The notebooks seized by CBSA listed clients, guarantors, recruiters in Mexico, and accomplices on the U.S. side. In one April 20, 2024 interception near the border, police stopped a vehicle registered to Gonzalez de Paz and, according to evidence cited by La Presse, identified him as one of the “main organizers,” operating without legal status from a René-Lévesque Boulevard condo that served as headquarters.
Seizures included cellphones, a black notebook, and cocaine. A roommate’s second notebook helped authorities tally about 200 migrants and more than $1 million in receipts.
“This type of criminal organization is ruthless and often threatens customers if they do not pay, or places them in a vulnerable situation,” a CBSA report filed as evidence stated, according to La Presse.
The Montreal-based organization first appeared on the radar in a rural community of about 400 inhabitants in the southern Montérégie region bordering New York State, La Presse reported, citing court documents.
On the U.S. side of the line, in the Swanton Sector (Vermont and adjoining northern New York and New Hampshire), authorities reported an exceptional surge in 2022–2023 — driven largely by Mexican nationals rerouting via Canada — foreshadowing the Mexican-cartel smuggling described in the CBSA case.
Gonzalez de Paz had entered Canada illegally in 2023, according to La Presse. When officers arrested him, CBSA agents seized 30 grams of cocaine, two cellphones, and a black notebook filled with handwritten notes. In his apartment, they found clothing by Balenciaga, a luxury brand whose T-shirts retail for roughly $1,000 each.
Investigators have linked this case to another incident at the same address involving a man named Mario Alberto Perez Gutierrez, a resident of the same condo as early as 2023.
Perez Gutierrez was accompanied by several men known to Canadian authorities for cocaine trafficking, receiving stolen goods, armed robbery, or loitering in the woods near the American border, according to a Montreal Police Service (SPVM) report filed as evidence.
The CBSA argued before the immigration tribunal that Gonzalez de Paz belonged to a group active in human and drug trafficking — “activities usually orchestrated by Mexican cartels.”
As The Bureau has previously reported, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Cabinet was warned in 2016 that lifting visa requirements for Mexican visitors would “facilitate travel to Canada by Mexicans with criminal records,” potentially including “drug smugglers, human smugglers, recruiters, money launderers and foot soldiers.”
CBSA “serious-crime” flags tied to Mexican nationals rose sharply after the December 2016 visa change. Former CBSA officer Luc Sabourin, in a sworn affidavit cited by The Bureau, alleged that hundreds of cartel-linked operatives entered Canada following the visa lift.
The closure of Roxham Road in 2023 altered migrant flows and increased reliance on organized smugglers — a shift reflected in the ledger-mapped Montreal network and a spike in U.S. northern-border encounters.
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Crime
Public Execution of Anti-Cartel Mayor in Michoacán Prompts U.S. Offer to Intervene Against Cartels
“I don’t want to be just another mayor on the list of those executed”
On the first night of November, during Day of the Dead celebrations, the independent, anti-cartel mayor of Uruapan in Michoacán, Carlos Manzo, was assassinated in the heart of his city during a public festival. His bloody murder has underscored the deadly risks faced by local officials who may lack adequate protection from a state that critics say is corroded by corruption and penetrated by powerful cartel networks that, in some regions, have supplanted government authority. The killing intensifies urgent questions about political and police corruption, cartel impunity, and the scope of U.S.–Mexico security cooperation — with a response from the U.S. State Department today offering to “deepen security cooperation with Mexico.”
Manzo, a fiercely outspoken anti-cartel mayor who took office in 2024 as Uruapan’s first independent leader, was gunned down as he stood before crowds at the annual Day of the Dead candlelight celebration. Witnesses said gunfire erupted shortly after Manzo appeared onstage, holding his young son moments before the attack. The festival, known locally as the Festival de las Velas, drew hundreds of families to Uruapan’s central plaza — now transformed into the scene of Mexico’s latest high-profile political assassination, and a catalyst for nationwide outrage, as online protests surged and citizens called for demonstrations against cartel violence.
According to early reports, at least two suspects have been detained and one attacker was killed on site. Authorities asserted — despite the success of the attack — that Manzo had been under National Guard protection since December 2024, with additional reinforcements added in May 2025 following credible threats to his life.
In Washington today, the killing drew political reaction. “My thoughts are with the family and friends of Carlos Manzo, mayor of Uruapan, Michoacán, Mexico, who was assassinated at a public Day of the Dead celebration last night. The United States stands ready to deepen security cooperation with Mexico to wipe out organized crime on both sides of the border,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said in a statement shared online.
Federal Security Minister Omar García Harfuch said the gunmen “took advantage of the vulnerability of a public event” to carry out the attack, despite a standing security perimeter.
President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned the killing as a “vile” assault on democracy and vowed there would be “zero impunity.” Her administration convened an emergency security meeting and pledged that the investigation would reach the “intellectual authors” of the crime. Yet the murder has already ignited outrage across Mexico over the government’s failure to protect local officials in cartel-dominated states such as Michoacán, where extortion, assassinations, and territorial disputes continue to erode basic governance.
Manzo had publicly warned of his fate. “I don’t want to be just another mayor on the list of those executed,” he said earlier this year, as he pressed the federal government for better coordination between municipal and military authorities. For years, Uruapan — an agricultural and trade hub in western Mexico — has been the site of deadly clashes between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and remnants of the Knights Templar Organization, both vying to control lucrative extortion and drug routes.
The killing of Manzo fits a dark and familiar pattern. In 2025 alone, several mayors in Michoacán, Guerrero, and Tamaulipas have been killed in attacks widely attributed to organized-crime groups. In June, the mayors of Tepalcatepec and Tacámbaro were ambushed and slain while traveling in official convoys. More than 90 local officials have been murdered since 2018 — a rate that analysts say reflects how cartels target municipal governments to ensure political control over territories tied to narcotics, mining, and agriculture. Uruapan, at the heart of Mexico’s avocado belt, is a strategic prize for the cartels that tax every shipment leaving the region.
The mayor’s death also recalls earlier tragedies that scarred the nation. In 2012, Dr. María Santos Gorrostieta Salazar, the former mayor of Tiquicheo, was abducted and murdered after surviving two assassination attempts and defying cartel threats. Her death became emblematic of the dangers faced by reformers who refuse to cooperate with criminal groups. More than a decade later, Manzo’s murder illustrates that little has changed — except the brazenness of the attackers, now willing to strike in front of cameras and families celebrating one of Mexico’s most sacred holidays.
The killing has also reignited long-standing U.S. frustration over Mexico’s inability to stem cartel violence, even as the Trump administration has expanded counter-narcotics operations at the border. Under Trump’s renewed directives, the U.S. has classified several Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and empowered the Pentagon to develop strike options against high-value targets abroad. A September 2025 joint statement between Washington and Mexico City pledged deeper intelligence sharing and cross-border enforcement initiatives, including efforts to halt arms trafficking southward.
However, Mexico’s government remains deeply wary of any U.S. military involvement on its soil. President Sheinbaum has warned that “Mexico will not stand for an invasion in the name of counter-cartel operations,” rebuffing Republican calls for unilateral action. Her position lays bare a long-standing tension between Mexico’s need for U.S. support and its insistence on sovereignty — a fault line that Manzo’s killing has reignited.
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