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Everything you need to know about the failed assassination attempt of Donald Trump

Published

12 months ago

41 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

Amid all the varying accounts and evidence, there is no clear picture of the attempt to kill Donald Trump, and the FBI and Secret Service have been unwilling or unable to supply answers to the questions raised by the failed assassination.

Almost two weeks have passed since the miraculous survival of Donald Trump and still the major questions raised by his attempted assassination are unanswered.

How can the United States Congress fail to determine the facts of a systematic failure of security which seems almost designed to permit an attempt on the former president’s life?

The obvious questions – how could this happen? – and why? – have equally obvious answers. The reason there are no answers is because Donald Trump is the mortal enemy of the entire political establishment of the U.S. and its subject nations.

We are ruled by a conspiracy against the obvious. The attempt to kill Donald Trump cannot be understood if we do not begin with a statement of the obvious: his political enemies want him dead.

This is a report on the official and unofficial investigations into what the FBI called “an incident” on July 13. As we shall see, the official lines of inquiry effectively exclude the obvious.

The most obvious fact of all is that everyone except the people supposed to protect him have seen this coming for a long time.

See no evil

The version of events presented by the bare facts is another conspiracy against the obvious. The story says a lone gunman – a 20 year old called Thomas Matthew Crooks – decided to shoot Trump one day, and no one stopped him until he had done so. According to CNN, Crooks scoped the site with a rangefinder three hours before the shooting, and was seen doing so, before returning to carry it out. A rangefinder has one use: to report the distance to a target.

Former Secret Service chief Kimberly Cheatle said a rangefinder “is not a prohibited item” when asked why Crooks was not stopped.

Crooks was filmed wandering the perimeter of the Trump rally one hour before the shooting. 

He was photographed by Secret Service snipers and seen on the roof by them – and others – well before the shots were fired. 

‘We cannot trust the FBI’

This report will first examine the official story of a lone gunman acting alone. Cheatle refused to answer whether her agency had produced a complete timeline of Crooks’ movements leading up to the moment of Trump’s shooting.

“We cannot trust the FBI to do an open and honest investigation” said Sen. Ron Johnson, speaking to Fox News.

Johnson also mentions that local law enforcement, tasked with securing the building from which the shooting took place, were instructed to send pictures they took on the day to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). “What does the ATF have to do with this?” he was asked. Perhaps the FBI will explain.

Perhaps not. FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress on July 24 that he had doubts as to whether Trump was shot at all.

This seems callous in the extreme, given that Corey Comperatore was killed and two other men critically injured by the shootings.

During the hearing, it was reported that two FBI agents were on record expressing regret that Trump had survived. 

The FBI, which sees no evil in Crooks which can explain his actions, and whose director insists Crooks “acted alone,” may itself be connected to the shooting.

Reports have surfaced showing a phone connected to Crooks was “pinged” eight times in the vicinity of an FBI field office in 2023.

The Secret Service cannot say whether it has attempted to recreate Crooks’ movements and connections prior to the shooting. In the absence of any evidence of an official attempt to do so, this task has been undertaken by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, and reported on July 22 by independent news outlet Blaze Media:

According to Oversight investigators, a phone associated with Crooks’ work address at a nursing home in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, traveled to the Gallery Place complex in downtown Washington, D.C., on June 26, 2023. The phone ‘pinged’ seven or eight times from that location the same day.

Gallery Place – an 11-story mixed-use building constructed over the Chinatown Metro station – is filled with retail stores and restaurants but also houses offices of the FBI on the upper floors, former FBI Special Agent Kyle Seraphin told Blaze News.

‘It is the closest [location] off-site that I’m aware of to the Washington Field Office,’ Seraphin said. ‘Agents are assigned to Washington Field, but they work out of Gallery Place.’

Former Secret Service chief Cheatle told Congress she knew how many bullet casings were found beside Crooks’ body – but refused to tell Congress. Cheatle referred Congress to the FBI for more information.

This is significant. At least nine – some say ten shots – were recorded on the day. A burst of three, followed by a different sounding burst of five, then perhaps another, then finally the single shot from the Secret Service sniper who killed Crooks.

The number of ejected shell casings on the roof beside Crooks would indicate how many shots came from him on that roof. Cheatle’s refusal to tell Congress is a refusal to admit what sound analysis appears to have confirmed: there was more than one shooter on the day.

Sen. Ron Johnson points out Cheatle’s refusal to tell Congress that reports claimed eight shell casings were found beside Crooks’ body.

Oversight Project Director Mike Howell warned of the obvious conflict of interest in permitting the Secret Service and the FBI to investigate themselves:

For the protection of whistleblowers and our investigation, we will not be sharing further information with the congressional task force due to the connective tissue between that entity and FBI, USSS, and other entities.

Mike Benz noted how the Oversight Project’s “parallel” investigation of the Trump assassin “already has more transparency and information than what the FBI is telling us.”

Why would anyone distrust the FBI? Here it refers to “the incident that took place today involving President Trump” and reassures Americans it has “assumed the role of the lead federal law enforcement agency” investigating this “incident.”

 

One role the FBI will play will be that of investigating its own links to the supposed “lone gunman.” FBI Director Wray says the agency still has no idea of the motive behind the shooting.

In addition, the Department for Homeland Security (DHS) will be investigating its own failure to secure the homeland. Sen. Josh Hawley revealed that whistleblowers told him that some of Trump’s security detail were “not even Secret Service. DHS assigned unprepared and inexperienced personnel.”

In place of Secret Service, Hawley’s sources claim Homeland Security Investigations agents were used instead. You can watch a video here which asks you to spot which agents might be “DEI” placements from DHS.

Can we reasonably expect DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to answer for this, or for the DHS “taking over” communications from the Secret Service to Congress?

Apparently not. On July 24, as a U.S. Senate hearing on the “Trump shooting” was announced, Hawley noted that Mayorkas would not be present to answer questions.

Conspiracy or clown show?

There are two ways to see the clear path to the assassination of Trump that Crooks was presented on the day. One – incredible incompetence. Two – a conspiracy to kill the enemy of the status quo.

The attempt to kill Trump is slipping off the news cycle. The latest news is that Kim Cheatle has refused to answer any of the most important questions around the shooting. She appears to have perjured herself before Congress whilst doing so.

She has since resigned. So far, no one has recommended she undergo enhanced interrogation to encourage her to respond to questioning.

Cheatle was even condemned by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as Marjorie Taylor Greene – a genuinely bipartisan outrage at the “security failures” over which Cheatle had presided.

Greene asked bluntly, “Was there a stand down order? Was there a conspiracy to assassinate President Trump?” 

Cheatle said the Secret Service had no audio recordings from the day of the shooting.

Cheatle was shown video of Crooks crawling on the roof before the shooting, asking to explain why he was not seen as a threat.

Cheatle refused to answer when asked whether Crooks was “acting alone,” referring Congress to the FBI investigation.

Following this performance, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer said “there will be more accountability to come” following Cheatle’s resignation. Comer’s pledge displays a confidence that few sane people will share.

The actors from the Deep State are never held to account.

More to this story?

It is unlikely in the extreme that Cheatle, Mayorkas, or any of the people who have sought to destroy Trump will ever be held accountable – unless he takes power in November.

They know this very well, and this is an obvious reason why the only good Trump is a dead Trump to the Deep State. This is a view shared by some members of Congress.

As Rep. Eli Crane asked the House Committee on Homeland Security on July 23:

After partisan attempts to bankrupt Trump, to imprison him for 750 years and countless depictions of him as a modern-day Hitler –  are you surprised that a lot of Americans are like, ‘Maybe there’s more to this story’?

Cheatle’s role in the story was to briefly become it, but her appearance before Congress was a master class in refusing the mention of the obvious.

No news from Cheatle is good news – if you support the official conspiracy theory of a lone gunman, favored by an unlikely series of helpful oversights.

How fortunate was this son of a registered Libertarian? The timeline of Crooks’ movements raises even more questions than those Cheatle declined to answer.

Timeline of events

The court press of the regime which hates Trump has offered a simple timeline of the day. NBC’s “full timeline” has it like this:

5:10PM: Crooks, the shooter, identified as a person of interest.
5:30PM: Crooks spotted with rangefinder.
5:52PM: Crooks spotted on roof by Secret Service.
6:02PM: Trump takes stage.
6:12PM: Crooks fires first shots.

Even the lying press admits a 20-minute gap between Crooks being seen with a rifle on the roof and the shots fired at Trump. He had been noted as suspicious one hour before the shooting.

Sen. Chuck Grassley published video on July 23 that showed agents admitting they had identified Crooks as a danger before he was permitted to start shooting.

The man who was mentioned as “detained” is this man, who appears to be the owner of the bicycle that some accounts – such as that of the U.K.’s Daily Mail – said belonged to Crooks.

Pictures of the bicycle showed a bag on the handlebars and a backpack on the ground beside it.

The bag on the handlebars appears to be the bedroll of Mr. Evans, the owner of the bicycle. Media reports said the bike belonged to Crooks. Evans said he was detained – not for being the shooter. “They thought I had the bomb.”

Agents in the video released by Sen. Grassley can be heard saying they saw Crooks arrive on a bicycle, with a backpack, but then lost sight of him.

NBC’s timeline is far from “full.” It excludes these and other key events, including Crooks’ actions in preparing for the shooting, the presence of explosives in a vehicle at the site, and the eyewitness reports of at least a second shooter.

The timeline: complete?

A far more comprehensive timeline has been published here. It begins with Crooks’ preparations, which included visiting the site three times: once a week beforehand, once on the morning of the shooting – and once more to carry it out.

Crooks bought a remote transmitter to detonate explosives, planned a drone surveillance route, and set up and used “encrypted communications channels” before visiting a shooting range on July 12.

At some point he hid the weapon on site, before the “pac man” perimeter was set up.

Kim Cheatle told Congress “the rooftop was outside of the perimeter” of the Secret Service’s “responsibility.” She did not explain why.

She had previously told the media that the roof, being slightly sloped, was unsafe. Here, Rep. Pat Fallon excoriates Cheatle for this ridiculous non-explanation, saying she should “go back to guarding Doritos,” referring to her previous post as senior director of global security at PepsiCo.

The sniper who shot Crooks was positioned on a much steeper roof, of course.

She did explain why there were no agents on that roof. They were taken off the roof because it was too hot, and went inside the building instead, to take up positions on the second floor of the building.

This gave them clear lines of sight to Crooks, who was “jumping from roof to roof” in plain view of Secret Service positions.

More than one gunman

According to one independent analyst, “The first three shots came from a very different weapon in a different location” to that of Crooks.

Why should anyone believe Chris Martenson, who is just posting on X? Well, his analysis relies on a report of sound signatures which confirmed at least three shooters.

“Deep State-aligned” CNN published a report on July 14 detailing the acoustic analysis of shots fired, naming three separate weapons. That of Crooks, that of the sniper who killed him, and a third weapon.

Martenson says the shots from Shooter 1 have no echo, whilst Shooter 2’s echoes are consistent with Crooks’ position, the report of the AR-15 resounding from the flat roof.

The third sound signature is unexplained.

The sounds from that day do not support the lone gunman conspiracy theory.

This image shows the location of two recordings of the shots fired on the day, which Martenson analyses here. The image below is taken from another account, which suggests a second shooter (the heavy) was firing from a window in a building to the rear of that where Crooks – “the patsy” – was positioned.

Wherever the shots came from, this third weapon was also firing at the stage, says Martenson. He explains that the first three shots have no echo, are muffled, are further away.

Five shots follow, with echoes. Another shot, more of a snapping sound, is heard. Nine shots so far.

Later, the Secret Service sniper shoots. This would be shot number 10 – if the snapping sound is counted.

John Cullen contests Martenson’s account. He says there may have been two shooters in addition to Crooks – drawing on another eyewitness report.

Cullen suggests a shooter may have been positioned in a tree, which one reporter said snipers were aiming at. Police were pictured scaling the tree after the shots with a ladder. 

An eyewitness who says she was present at the rally says she saw “cops pull a guy out of the tree.” She said her friend saw someone shooting from the tree.

Cullen also asks questions concerning the van – said to be that of Crooks – which was towed 10 miles away from outside the Trump rally – despite being reported as being “laden with explosives.”

A report from CNN, however, claims Crooks had a Hyundai Sonata “with an improvised explosive device in the trunk wired to a transmitter he carried.”

Then, Crooks drove his Hyundai Sonata about an hour north, joining thousands of people from around the region who flocked to Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. He parked the car outside the rally, with an improvised explosive device hidden in the trunk that was wired to a transmitter he carried, the official said. Then, investigators believe, he used his newly-bought ladder to scale a nearby building, and opened fire on the former president.

As investigators continue to search for a motive behind the attempted assassination, they are scrutinizing Crooks’ movements before the attack and trying to piece together a timeline of his actions leading up to it.

The New York Times reported two explosive devices in the Hyundai, along with the drone presumed to have been used by Crooks to surveil the site. According to the Times, “So far, [the FBI has] found no evidence that he was motivated by any strong partisan political beliefs or an animus against Mr. Trump.”

Yet the social media site Gab seems to have found an account made by Crooks making strong pro-immigration and pro-Biden remarks.

“While the account made very few posts on the site, the majority of them were in support of President Biden,” Gab CEO Andrew Torba claimed. “A number of posts in particular expressed support for President Biden’s COVID lockdowns, border policies and executive orders.”

Torba made the claims in a July 24 X post.

The refusal to notice the obvious is a hallmark of the agents of the empire of lies. This is a regime which obviously hates Trump, and the truth he tells about their corrupt junta and the murderous wars by which it is enriched. It is obvious that the regime has radicalized millions through its propaganda and lies to defend a dying liberal global order from democracy. The refusal to find any whisper of a motive is the refusal to acknowledge the reality in which this shooting took place.

Did the van – which resembles a vehicle pictured under the water tower – carry the explosives? Did the Hyundai? Did Crooks arrive in two vehicles and on a bicycle as well? The agents in Sen. Grassley’s video mention both the water tower and a van. This is footage we would never have seen had it not been leaked. Why?

All the information which has been useful so far has been released outside official channels. The narrative of the fact-checkers and trusted sources in the mainstream simply does not make sense.

How many shots were fired?

On July 3, the House Committee on Homeland Security met to discuss the assassination attempt.

During the hearing, the Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris told Rep. Eric Swalwell that “eight casings have been recovered,” after Swallwell asked how many rounds the shooter fired.

Rep. Michael McCaul asked Commissioner Paris about the water tower. According to Paris, there were no Secret Service at or on the water tower. McCaul also mentions explosives in a car, said to be that of Crooks, which Crooks was presumably intending to detonate using a device found on his body.

Who gave the order not to position a sniper on the water tower – the “tallest structure on that site”?

“I do not know,” said Paris.

At the 3-hour, 10-minute mark, Paris confirms that a local police officer gained the roof and was confronted by Crooks, who pointed his weapon at the officer peering over the rooftop.

Paris says that Crooks began firing “a matter of seconds” after this officer came face to face with Crooks, dropping from the roof to avoid being shot himself.

“I’d like to clarify it was a matter of seconds,” says Paris, “because I think earlier it might have been minutes.” Earlier reports suggested an interval of several minutes between the officer’s encounter with Crooks and when, as Paris says, “the first shots rang out.”

Seconds after turning to face a police officer, Crooks is here said to reposition and immediately fire on Trump, narrowly missing his skull.

Hiding in plain sight

Rep. Eli Crane is a former U.S. Navy Seal sniper. On July 22, he posted a video on X from the perspective of a window on a floor occupied by Secret Service agents.

It shows a clear field of view of the roof on which Crooks took position. How could these agents not have seen Crooks?

On the same day, July 22, Crooks posted a video he filmed himself from the roof on which the “supposed sniper took his shot.”

Crane does not believe the official account is credible. This may echo suspicions that the shooter was not Crooks at all. [Caution – graphic image.]

“Why weren’t security team sir, on site, able to spot a 20-year-old kid with zero camouflage crawling up a white roof with an AR-15 that several rally-goers were screaming and yelling and pointing out and they noticed him – and they weren’t even there to conduct security they were there to watch the president – do you have any idea why the security teams couldn’t find that guy?” he asked.

“I do not, sir,” Paris replied.

The lapses in security do not explain how agents with a clear view of the roof of the American Glass Research building on which Crooks was killed could not see him. Crane does not buy the story that Crooks was a lone gunman, and suggests he was not the would-be assassin at all.

At the 3-hour, 34-minute mark, Crane asks Paris whether he is aware that the “lone gunman” narrative is viewed with widespread suspicion.

“Are you aware, sir, that many Americans believe this was very likely not a lone shooter but a coordinated assassination attempt? Have you been getting those messages from people like I have?”

Paris said, “I have not, sir.”

Crane replied:

You haven’t. Well, there’s a lot of people in this room that have been getting the same messages. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that a lot of Americans are like, ‘This doesn’t add up? This doesn’t make sense, guys?’

How could this many things have gone wrong – like the things I pointed out? A 20-year-old kid got 150 yards of the [former] president of the United States with an AR-15, flew a drone to conduct sight surveillance, was spotted with a rangefinder ranging targets, then lost.

He had advanced explosive devices on him, with no military training. Nobody was placed in the most obvious spot to conduct counter-sniper operations.

I was a sniper in the SEAL Teams, Colonel. As soon as I got out of the SUV and I saw that water tower I was like, ‘That’s exactly where I’d be. Put me right there. So obvious.’

After partisan attempts to bankrupt him, imprison him for 700-50 years and countless depictions as a modern-day Hitler, are you surprised, sir, that a lot of Americans are like, ‘Maybe there’s more to this story?’

Crane finishes with reference to a November 30, 2023, article written in the Washington Post by neocon warmonger Robert Kagan, the husband of former under secretary of state Victoria Nuland. The article’s headline reads: “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable – we should stop pretending.”

“This article compares Trump to Caesar and attempts to justify the assassination of President Trump,” Crane said. “I think even though we want to dodge around it and not make this partisan, I think we all know that a lot of this has to do with the very violent rhetoric that has led up to this.”

Crane did not mention that Kagan wrote a follow-up – “The Trump dictatorship: How to stop it” – in January 2024. Kagan said that the system he champions is fighting for its survival, and that stopping Trump is a “matter of life and death.”

Kagan suggested neocon Zionist Nimrata “Nikki” Haley as the savior of the evil and its empire he has done so much to inflict on the world. His family business is war, in which others die and for which he and his murderous clique are celebrated and enriched.

Investigation

Joe Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appointed Janet Napolitano to investigate the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. 

As the Oversight Project of the Heritage Foundation says, “She has a very long record of vehement anti-Trumpism.”

What is more, the House of Representatives announced on July 24 that they will be off “next week” and returning on September 9.

Trump promised to declassify the investigation should he win the election in November 2024.

Former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich asked why the buck had seemed to stop with Kim Cheatle. Why was Mayorkas not removed, too?

Mayorkas’ DHS had already “taken over” the briefing of Congress by July 16, replacing direct communication between the Secret Service and Congress.

According to Politico’s Congress reporter Jordain Carney, a spokesman was reported as saying, “After the Secret Service agreed to brief members of the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, [DHS] took over communications with the Committee and has since refused to confirm a briefing time.”

Oversight’s Mike Howell saw this as a clear case of political obstruction of any “independent review” of the shooting. 

Howell’s picture of the feverish domestic situation in the U.S. is also compelling, saying “years of escalating the tensions” in the U.S. shows how “this is well beyond the Secret Service and their posture.” 

In the aftermath of the shooting, Trump supporters at the rally were filmed directly accusing the mainstream media of inciting the assassination attempt. 

Moves underway to deny Trump protection

Readers may be aware that Democrat lawmakers had drafted legislation to remove Secret Service protection from former President Trump.

Rep. Thomas Massie called for those involved in this move to be barred from participating in the investigation into the attempted assassination.

Rep. Bennie Thompson is one such Democrat congressman.

Thompson explained in the video above that the mechanism of removing Trump’s Secret Service protection relies on whether Trump “is sentenced to jail,” following his legal persecution on felony charges in a process widely criticized as lawfare. Yet as Massie points out, Thompson’s own published fact sheet calls for the removal of Trump’s protection “once he is convicted.”

Responding to the attempted assassination of Trump, Thompson’s own staffer suggested on Facebook that Crooks “should have taken shooting lessons.” Massie also notes that Thompson also “helped Secret Service delete their phone data” relating to the alleged “insurrection” on January 6.

Why should representatives who are engineering the removal of protection from Trump be involved in investigating the effective removal of protection which enabled his attempted assassination?

When reminded of the fact that Trump has just survived an attempt on his life, Thompson is asked to withdraw the legislation to remove Trump’s protective detail.

Thompson refuses to do so, saying “Trump had Secret Service protection in Butler, Pennsylvania.”

Thompson also says the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security – currently Alejandro Mayorkas – can reassign Secret Service protection once Trump has served his sentence.

He does not mention the fact that Trump did not, in fact, have a full Secret Service protective detail in Butler.

Trump to be defended by his enemies?

Massie here raises yet another question that cannot be answered by the official conspiracy theory. It is obvious that Trump is hated by members of the US political class who have worked tirelessly to destroy him. Why should people who want to throw him in prison with no protection be involved in this investigation at all?

Sen. Chuck Grassley has published a letter to Mayorkas, asking whether Mayorkas can explain why local law enforcement was sharing responsibility with Secret Service for securing the building from which Crooks shot at Trump – and why Crooks was able to fly a surveillance drone over the site.

Sen. Grassley also asks “whether the water tower was cleared” and whether the water tower had “any role” in the attempted assassination.

A video taken on July 13 shows a vehicle parked beneath the water tower, as the stage is prepared for Trump’s address.

Redacted news reported three separate eyewitnesses at the rally who were interviewed – claiming shots were fired from a second location. They all indicate the water tower. At the 22-minute mark in this video you can watch them make these claims.

X user Austin Ayers claims this recording is “raw 911 audio” of law enforcement responding to “shots fired towards the blue water tank, blue water tank, that side.”

There is no clear picture of the attempt to kill Donald Trump. The official agencies have been unwilling or unable to supply the answers to the questions raised by the failed assassination.

How can the Senate hope to succeed where Congress has failed? The conspiracy against the obvious did not begin with this shooting. It is the policy of the liberal global regime itself, to deny its agenda of destruction and death, while the evidence of its diabolical designs becomes impossible to ignore.

Whoever fired those shots, whoever was behind the alleged lone gunman and his apparently motiveless crime, and however he arrived to commit it, it is obvious that the number one enemy of the globalist regime was almost shot to death on live television.

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Crime

DEA Busts Canadian Narco Whose Chinese Supplier Promised to Ship 100 Kilos of Fentanyl Precursors per Month From Vancouver to Los Angeles

Published on July 15, 2025

By

Sam Cooper's avatar Sam Cooper

 A Hollywood-style DEA sting revealed a seamless pipeline from Vancouver brokers to Los Angeles cartel operatives and Australian drug markets.

A senior Indo-Canadian gangster from an ultra-violent British Columbia–based fentanyl trafficking gang with ties to Latin cartels, Chinese Triads, and Hezbollah was taken down in a stunning U.S. government sting that saw a thick-accented Chinese narco casually promise an undercover agent at a Vancouver café that he could ship 100 kilograms of fentanyl precursors per month from Vancouver to Los Angeles, using his trucking company fronted by an Indo-Canadian associate.

The case is detailed in a sprawling DEA probe spanning Turkey, Mexico City, Dubai, Australia, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles — all captured in a 29-page affidavit with scenes so surreal they could rival a Hollywood script, complete with underworld nicknames like “Burger,” “Queen,” and “Darth Vader.”

At the center is Opinder Singh Sian, a Canadian national and longtime Lower Mainland underworld figure who survived targeted shootings and reportedly leads the Brothers Keepers gang — a key proxy for the Sinaloa cartel in Canada, interoperable with other Latin American cartels, Chinese Communist Party chemical suppliers, and working alongside the Kinahans, a notorious Irish crime family now based in Dubai and closely linked to Hezbollah finance networks.

Sian has been arrested in Arizona and indicted in a sweeping U.S. case that underscores British Columbia’s critical role as a global trafficking hub, bringing together Mexican cartels and Chinese precursor suppliers that operate with near impunity in Vancouver but are increasingly the focus of elite U.S. law enforcement.

The affidavit illustrates how Vancouver’s criminal networks have funneled Chinese precursors into the United States and directly tied them to methamphetamine deals with Mexican gangsters on Los Angeles streets — part of one of the most sophisticated narcotics smuggling conspiracies ever uncovered in North America.

The explosive details are laid out in a newly unsealed affidavit filed by U.S. federal agent Albert Polito in support of a criminal complaint and arrest warrant against Sian. Sworn in 2024, the document offers a rare inside look at how Vancouver’s street-level crews transformed into global brokers bridging continents and more sophisticated criminal syndicates.

Much of the case focuses on methamphetamine shipments from Los Angeles to Australia, orchestrated by Sian, who acted as a proxy for more senior transnational Mexican, Chinese, and Iranian networks, experts say.

“Local gangs like Brothers Keepers aren’t just street crews — they’re frontline proxies in transnational narcoterror networks,” former Canadian intelligence analyst Scott McGregor, an expert on the nexus of Chinese and Iranian threats and foreign interference, commented on X. “Ignoring them as low-level threats misses their role in laundering, logistics, and hybrid warfare.”

But the penultimate finding — likely of high interest in Washington political circles — came from a stunning investigative meeting. In August 2023, the DEA affidavit describes how a shadowy U.S. undercover source known as “Queen” or CS-1 sat across from a man in Vancouver speaking with a thick Chinese accent.

The man, later identified as Peter Peng Zhou, explained in detail how he could “receive fentanyl precursor chemicals from China into Vancouver” and “send 100 kilos of chemicals per month to Los Angeles” using his British Columbia trucking company run by an Indo-Canadian associate.

Zhou allegedly told CS-1 that he had been doing this for about ten years and remembered when these kilograms of chemicals were upwards of $300,000 each. He claimed he knew how to make fentanyl and methamphetamine from the chemicals and emphasized that he would require upfront payment before sending any shipments south to Los Angeles.

Demonstrating how casually Vancouver’s narcos blend into upscale environments, the affidavit describes how Sian first dined at a downtown restaurant with his wife, child, and CS-1 before taking “The Queen” to meet his precursor suppliers at a coffee house.

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That critical meeting, involving Sian, Zhou, and other associates, provided prosecutors with some of the clearest evidence yet of a direct chemical pipeline from Chinese suppliers into North American distribution networks, routed first through Vancouver’s port and trucking infrastructure.

The investigation began in June 2022 when DEA agents in Ankara, Turkey, received intelligence about an opportunity to embed a confidential source into a global trafficking organization. This network needed help moving large shipments of methamphetamine and cocaine from Southern California to Australia — one of the world’s most lucrative drug markets.

DEA agents provided their Ankara counterparts with the phone number of CS-1 — known in global gang networks as “Queen” — who posed as an international logistics coordinator. A Turkish narco, Ibrahim Ozcelik, made initial contact and then passed CS-1’s details to a North American leader: Opinder Singh Sian.

After initial communications, Sian and CS-1 arranged an in-person meeting in Vancouver on February 1, 2023. During this pivotal encounter, Sian claimed to work closely with Irish organized crime — specifically the Kinahan family — as well as Italian groups and other powerful Canadian gangs. Outside Canada, he described sourcing drugs directly from major Mexican and South American cartels, reinforcing his role as a cross-border broker capable of linking multiple criminal networks. He also said he collaborated with a known Turkish drug kingpin, Hakan Arif, highlighting the global scope of his alliances.

While in Vancouver, Sian introduced CS-1 to two male associates. They explained they had about 500 kilograms of cocaine stockpiled and needed help moving it through Los Angeles ports and on to Australia. CS-1 claimed they could facilitate offloading in Los Angeles, repackaging, and onward shipping via container vessel — a scheme designed to tap into Australia’s sky-high wholesale prices, which exceed $200,000 per kilogram.

In March 2023, Sian and CS-1 met again at a restaurant in Manhattan Beach, California, to discuss expanding into methamphetamine smuggling. “Queen” also brought along a DEA undercover agent (“UC-1”), posing as a cousin who worked at the Port of Long Beach and helped move narcotics undetected.

At the meeting, Sian expressed caution, acknowledging they could get in trouble just for meeting. He said his first shipment would be “200,” consistent with earlier encrypted text conversations. UC-1 advised doing fewer but larger shipments to reduce detection risk, emphasizing this was only done for CS-1 as “family.”

Sian pressed for details about the port, probed UC-1’s connections, and mentioned knowing other contacts at the port, the DEA alleges.

By June 2023, the plan to move large methamphetamine shipments into the U.S. began to accelerate. Sian advised that he and his associates would deliver an estimated 500 to 750 kilograms of methamphetamine in separate drops coordinated by his network. On June 13, 2023, Sian created an encrypted chat group using the alias “Cain,” adding “Sticks” (later identified as Sebastian Rollin, a Canadian based in Montreal) and CS-1.

Rollin allegedlly informed CS-1 that his crew would soon deliver 30 pounds of methamphetamine in Southern California as part of the first staged shipment.

Another trafficker known as “El R” or “The R,” later identified as Ruben Chavez Ibarra, entered the operation.

The DEA’s Los Angeles operation revealed gritty street-level deals directly tying Sian’s Indo-Canadian group to “Queen’s” Mexican networks. On July 6, 2023, after days of negotiation, Jorge Orozco-Santana arranged a pick-up in Anaheim using a white Mercedes. He verified the deal with the serial number of a dollar bill token, handed over two plastic bins containing 84.6 kilograms of methamphetamine. The DEA tied this deal to the Montreal network involved in Sian’s encrypted chats.

On July 29, 2023, Sian created a new Threema group chat including a new associate using the moniker “AAA,” later identified as Tien Vai Ty Truong — a dual citizen of Vietnam and Canada, with narco operations in Toronto and Vancouver directed from Hong Kong, according to the DEA affidavit.

The group discussed the 30-pound and 200-pound loads and planned their shipment to Australia. On August 1, Sian asked CS-1 to call an associate named Kular to manage mounting anxiety among Mexican sources over shipment delays.

Meanwhile, CS-1 began discussing fentanyl precursor chemicals with Kular and Sian.

This line of discussion began because Kular had first asked CS-1 whether her networks could receive direct ketamine shipments into Mexico City — a question that suggested to the DEA that Sian’s network likely had direct access to Chinese Communist Party–linked drug suppliers and large-scale chemical manufacturing channels.

In response, the DEA’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Group 48 team prompted “Queen” to pivot and ask about fentanyl precursors. Queen did so, requesting prices on two critical compounds: 1-BOC-4-piperidone and 1-BOC-4-anilinopiperidine. Kular replied that the price would be $225 for the first chemical and $750 for the second, plus $1,000 for shipping.

Shortly after, on July 25, 2023, Sian himself directly contacted Queen, claiming he could supply those same precursors directly and even provide initial samples. He said he could get the chemicals “straight from China,” and proposed shipping them by container into the Port of Long Beach.

To build trust, Sian offered to mail a sample first. On July 29, Queen provided Sian with an undercover DEA-controlled PO box. That same day, Sian confirmed he had sent 20 grams of 1-BOC-4-piperidone and said he would accept cryptocurrency (specifically USDT, also known as Tether) for future large orders. By August 10, Sian informed Queen that the sample shipment had been sent, though it might not arrive until the following week — further confirming the group’s operational capacity to source Chinese precursors and move them into the U.S.

This was the evidence the DEA needed to take the Vancouver port fentanyl sting into high gear.

Returning to Vancouver in August, the headline-making fentanyl meeting came into full context. On August 16, 2023, CS-1 met Sian and his wife and child for lunch in downtown Vancouver. After lunch, Sian drove CS-1 to meet two individuals capable of sending bulk fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States.

At a coffee shop, Peter Peng Zhou — speaking with a heavy Chinese accent — described how he could receive precursor shipments from China into Vancouver and move 100 kilograms per month to Los Angeles using his British Columbia trucking company.

In an almost absurdly candid aside, Zhou introduced his partner, known as “Burger,” described as a Southeast Asian male who managed “the money side” of the business for him. According to the DEA affidavit, Burger bluntly said he was involved because “his wife was very greedy and wanted him to make more money.”

The pivotal Vancouver coffee meeting also brought in more connections to Mexican operatives in California. During the same meeting, Sian mentioned a contact named Orlando, referring to Orlando Escutia, a Bakersfield, California–based associate. Sian explained that Escutia would be delivering CS-1 an additional 50 kilograms of methamphetamine the following week for shipment to Australia.

Zhou further revealed he could start acquiring a new fentanyl precursor with a CAS number ending in 228, describing it as a “newer and better” chemical for making fentanyl. He elaborated that when he shipped these chemicals by mail, he used a special bag designed to evade law enforcement detection, the DEA alleges.

Later that same day, CS-1 and Sian met with another key figure known as “ABC,” later identified as Kular, at a restaurant in downtown Vancouver. Kular claimed that his own boss, “AAA” — later identified as Tien Truong — was a Chinese national about 55 years old, mainly operating in the Toronto area. According to Kular, Truong’s bosses were ultimately based out of Hong Kong and specialized in moving large quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine around the world.

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Crime

‘We’re Going To Lose’: Steve Bannon Warns Withholding Epstein Files Would Doom GOP

Published on July 12, 2025

By

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Cohen

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon warned on Friday that Republicans would suffer major losses if President Donald Trump’s administration does not move to release documents related to deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and associations.

Axios reported on Sunday that a two-page memo showed the Department Of Justice (DOJ) and FBI found no evidence Epstein kept a “client list” or was murdered, but public doubts have continued. Bannon said on “Bannon’s War Room” that failure to release information would lead to the dissipation of one-tenth of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and significant losses for the Republican Party in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election.

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“It’s not about just a pedophile ring and all that, it’s about who governs us, right? And that’s why it’s not going to go away … For this to go away, you’re going to lose 10% of the MAGA movement,” Bannon said. “If we lose 10% of the MAGA movement right now, we’re going to lose 40 seats in ’26, we’re going to lose the [presidency]. They don’t even have to steal it, which they’re going to try to do in ’28, because they’re going to sit there and they go, ‘They’ve disheartened the hardest-core populist nationalists’ — that’s always been who governs us.”

Bannon also demanded the publication of all the Epstein documents on “Bannon’s War Room” Thursday. He called on the DOJ to go to court and push for the release of the documents or for Trump to appoint a special counsel to manage the publication.

Epstein was arrested in 2019 and charged with sex trafficking. Shortly after, he was found dead in his New York Metropolitan Correctional Center cell shortly after. Officials asserted that he hanged himself in his cell.

However, Epstein’s death has sparked years of theories because of the malfunctioning of prison cameras, along with guards admitting to falsifying documents about checking on the then-inmate. The DOJ inspector general later confirmed that multiple surveillance cameras outside of his cell were inoperable, while others captured the common area outside his door.

Both Bannon and Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson have speculated that Epstein had connections to intelligence agencies.

Former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta allegedly indicated that Epstein was tied to intelligence, according to Vicky Ward in The Daily Beast.

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