At a news briefing on Thursday. Gov. Jeff Landry shared the ongoing efforts between state, local and federal officials to respond to the attack in New Orleans’ famous French Quarter, which left 15 dead, including the shooter.
In the early hours of New Year’s Day, a 42-year-old Texas man and Army veteran, identified by authorities as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, drove a rented pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
The attack left at least 15 people dead and dozens injured. The FBI is treating the incident as an act of terrorism. Countering previous reports, the FBI currently believes Jabbar acted alone, though they are examining any official ties and communications with international terrorist organizations.
Landry said the state has deployed resources and personnel from across the state to support the investigation and ensuring the city is safe for Thursday’s Sugar Bowl, including the Louisiana National Guard.
Landry said that his office and the state have been in communication with the New Orleans Police Department, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The agency has also forwarded critical incident response assets, including hostage rescue teams, bomb technicians, and crisis management coordinators, to process the crime scene and provide victim assistance.
According to Christopher Raia, the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, the FBI is reviewing hundreds of hours of surveillance footage from the French Quarter and surrounding areas to piece together a timeline of events.
Investigators believe Jabbar picked up the rented Ford F-150 in Houston, Texas, on December 30 and drove to New Orleans on New Year’s Eve. He posted five videos to Facebook between 1:29 a.m. and 3:02 a.m. on Jan. 1, proclaiming his allegiance to the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, and explaining his motivations.
FBI bomb technicians discovered two functional improvised explosive devices inside coolers near Bourbon Street. Both devices were safely neutralized. Officials have ruled out reports of additional explosive devices.
In one video, Jabbar stated that he had initially planned to harm family and friends but ultimately decided against it, citing his desire to highlight the “war between the believers and the disbelievers.”
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On May 3, 2025, at approximately 6:55 p.m., a male suspect drove a stolen trackhoe into the parking lot of the Bonnyville RCMP. The suspect dumped several boulders in front of the prisoner bay and then proceeded to damage 5 police vehicles, which were parked in the lot. The suspect then fled on foot.
Bonnyville RCMP, Police Dog Services and RPAS (drone), searched for the suspect and he was quickly located in a tree line just north west of the detachment. He was arrested and is currently in custody pending a Judicial
Interim Release Hearing.
The suspect cannot be named at this point as the charges have not been sworn before the courts. An updated media release is expected in the coming days.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Striking a cell capable of washing $100 million within what U.S. counter-narcotics officials describe as a half-trillion-dollar global enterprise, federal prosecutors have secured convictions against three men tied to a China-based transnational laundering syndicate, exposing how Mexican cartel drug proceeds flowed quietly through Charlotte banks as overdose deaths surged across the Carolinas.
The case, centered in Charlotte, North Carolina, reveals the concealed infrastructure enabling Mexican cartels to convert fentanyl profits into clean capital, aided by sophisticated Chinese professional launderers operating like underwriters and rogue accountants—embedding illicit funds in regional banks using fake identities and a dense lattice of shell companies.
Prosecutors say Maoxuan Xia, 29, of China; Shao Neng Lin, 58, of Baldwin Park, California; and Zhou Yu, 42, of China, laundered more than $92 million in drug proceeds through this underground system. Court records show the trio used false documentation and coordinated deposits to move over $700,000 through Charlotte-area financial institutions alone.
Donald Im, a former top DEA illicit finance expert, said the system is designed so that all roads ultimately lead to Beijing’s treasury—with narcotics proceeds flowing back to China through laundering networks, while cartels handle the production and distribution of synthetic opioids sourced from Chinese factories.
The Charlotte case offers a rare, granular view into how that system functions on the ground. Xia served as a primary collector, retrieving cash from cartel-linked operatives across the United States. In less than two years, he laundered over $30 million. Lin and Yu operated back-end accounts, managing shell firms that each moved approximately $20 million. All three men entered guilty pleas this spring.
Investigators describe the laundering structure as part of a wider financial ecosystem anchored in Chinese underground banking hubs—active in cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, Mexico City, New York and Los Angeles. These operations pair U.S. drug money with Chinese nationals looking to move renminbi out of the mainland, exploiting capital flight demand to create an opaque, dollar-based network of cash flow. Funds are then reinvested in electronics exports, real estate, and layered wire transfers—largely beyond the reach of Western regulators.
The Charlotte convictions come amid a regional overdose emergency. In 2023, South Carolina reported 44.7 overdose deaths per 100,000 residents, far exceeding the U.S. average of 31.3. Georgia recorded 2,687 overdose deaths in 2022, a 300 percent increase since 2010. In North Carolina, more than 36,000 people have died from drug overdoses since 2000, with over 4,000 deaths recorded in 2021 alone. Fentanyl now accounts for nearly 80 percent of opioid fatalities in the Carolinas.
Taken together, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia form one of the most intensely affected overdose corridors in North America. Only British Columbia—where Vancouver’s urban fentanyl crisis remains in declared emergency—and West Virginia report comparably higher death rates. British Columbia recorded 48.5 overdose deaths per 100,000 residents in 2024; West Virginia reached 80.9 per 100,000 in 2022.
A parallel indictment in South Carolina, unsealed in April, further illustrates China’s financial blueprint. Prosecutors charged Nasir Ullah, 28, and Naim Ullah, 32, of Sumter, along with Puquan Huang, 49, of Buford, Georgia, with laundering millions in cartel-linked proceeds. According to court filings, the men concealed cash in Sumter-area properties before converting it into overseas electronics shipments to Hong Kong and Dubai. Investigators allege the group was linked to broader laundering cells stretching into Asia and the Middle East.
While no financial institutions were charged in the Charlotte case, the use of fraudulent documents and synthetic identities to move large sums underscores continuing vulnerabilities in U.S. bank compliance systems—particularly in regional markets where oversight mechanisms may lag behind the sophistication of illicit finance networks.
The case was prosecuted under Operation Take Back America, a multi-agency U.S. initiative focused on dismantling the financial backbone of transnational fentanyl trafficking. Officials involved say targeting launderers may yield more strategic disruption than intercepting drug shipments alone—striking directly at the revenue pipelines keeping the trade alive.
Im, who led transnational threat targeting units within DEA’s Special Operations Division, has long studied the convergence of criminal enterprise and state-sanctioned economic leverage. In his assessment, Chinese laundering brokers serve both cartel clients and parallel financial objectives of the state—helping the proceeds of Western fentanyl sales find their way into Belt and Road infrastructure loans, real estate portfolios, and capital-export schemes tied to China’s global influence-building.
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