Written by Sam Cooper, May 6, 2025
CHILLIWACK, Canada — Nestled in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley, hugging the U.S. border, Cultus Lake is surrounded by towering rainforest pines—a postcard image of Canada’s serene beauty. Shaped by the last Ice Age, the south shore’s cavernous ridges form the Columbia Valley, which snakes into Washington State—sparsely populated, with no official border crossing, and peopled mostly by large ranch owners. But the pristine corridor conceals deadly secrets with geopolitical consequences.
According to multiple Canadian intelligence experts, significant Columbia Valley properties have been quietly seized as strategic high ground by associates of the notorious Sam Gor narco syndicate, operating in tandem with agents of the Chinese state’s security and foreign influence apparatus.
“The number of people—nefarious people—who have places down there, it’s quite phenomenal,” an intelligence analyst not authorized to be named said.
“It’s a very difficult place to do any surveillance on. Not a lot of properties, big properties—and anybody that doesn’t have a local license plate or something from there, they just get spotted right away.” Combine that with its location—adjacent to the U.S. border—and, the source added, “it’s got to be some of the most favorable area in the Lower Mainland to be doing any kind of cannabis stuff or drug smuggling.”
Experts describe what amounts to a special zone of Chinese crime and influence activities—tied clandestinely to Beijing in function, if not officially—a secure enclave where key properties have been tied to covert cross-border helicopter operations.
Many of the properties of concern are large-acreage farms with cannabis licenses dating back decades—once controlled by B.C. biker gangs, but quietly consolidated since the early 2000s under the influence of figures linked to the Sam Gor syndicate. The networks tied to these estates, sources say, not only profit from cannabis and sophisticated money laundering brokerages that transfer illicit proceeds—ultimately benefiting the Chinese state—but are also linked to Beijing’s so-called “CCP police station” activities, and numerous significant investigations into fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and Chinese precursor imports.
According to one source familiar with U.S. government investigations in British Columbia, one Columbia Valley property stands out with exceptional urgency. Spanning roughly 30 acres and situated steps from the U.S. border, the estate has triggered alarms among The Bureau’s national security sources—not only due to its strategic location, but because of the individuals connected to it.
Chief among them: Sam Gor himself, the syndicate’s elusive boss, a Chinese Canadian named Tse Chi Lop. Of equal or greater concern: a senior Chinese security and intelligence figure with ties to Sam Gor’s upper command, and individuals associated with Chinese mining and chemical interests and Beijing’s United Front Work Department.
According to RCMP sources, the site has also been linked to numerous narcotics investigations in Western Canada and cross-border helicopter activity into Washington State—escalating it from regional concern to a geopolitical flashpoint between Ottawa and Washington.
Among other key figures linked to the property: Peter Lap-San Pang, a Toronto-based alleged Sam Gor associate named in a British Columbia civil forfeiture case involving a suspected illegal mansion casino; and Ye Long Yong, a convicted Sam Gor “kingpin” identified in Canadian court files for importing, exporting, and trafficking heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine. During a parole hearing, Ye told officials that “a successful person in Toronto gave” him his drug business.
The parole records noted: “There was a great deal of effort from many police organisations from all around the world, with interpreters in several languages and evidence gathered for a long period of time in order to infiltrate and bring down Mr. YE’s criminal organisation.”
Also tied to the property is a United Front–associated “Big Circle Boy” contemporary of Tse Chi Lop, who was named in B.C.’s anti-money laundering inquiry as the superior of Paul King Jin—the notorious boxing gym owner, loan shark, and money laundering suspect at the center of Canada’s largest-ever casino money laundering investigation, E-Pirate.
These are just several of the “many other Sam Gor members” associated with this 30-acre farm on the U.S. border, a source said—individuals who have surfaced repeatedly in B.C.’s highest-profile organized crime investigations over the past two decades, including the E-Pirate case.
Most of the Sam Gor and Chinese state-linked suspects tied to this particular Chilliwack-area border property—with the exception of Tse Chi Lop—remain less publicly known than Paul King Jin, whose notoriety has steadily grown since the Vancouver Sun’s 2017 revelations about the RCMP’s failed E-Pirate probe. Jin later survived a high-profile targeted shooting at Richmond’s Manzo restaurant in 2020—an attack that killed his business partner, Jian Jun Zhu, another Sam Gor leader allegedly behind the Silver International operation. That Richmond-based scheme—now infamous for revealing the “Vancouver Model” of money laundering—is believed to have moved hundreds of millions in drug proceeds through a combination of government-regulated and underground casinos, with links to drug-cash banks embedded in diaspora communities across the Western Hemisphere, including Mexico, South America, and hundreds of Chinese bank accounts.
More recently, The Globe and Mail reported troubling information—verified by The Bureau—that Canadian security officials had clandestinely surveilled Jin and other Chinese businessmen privately meeting with then–Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a Richmond hotel, during the height of the E-Pirate and related Chinese narcotics trafficking investigations in British Columbia.
The U.S. government’s concerns about transnational money laundering suspects tied to this nexus—including individuals connected to Columbia Valley properties and the private meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau—were underscored by a request for RCMP assistance in surveilling several Chinese nationals who, according to one source, arrived in Vancouver on a private jet.
Yet while Jin drew headlines in Canada, Sam Gor leader Tse Chi Lop—who holds Canadian citizenship—operated far more quietly across Vancouver, Toronto, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, mainland China, and the United States prior to his arrest in the Netherlands several years ago. He has long been identified as a top figure in what former U.S. State Department investigator David Asher describes as the “command and control” layer of Chinese Communist Party-linked money laundering in Toronto and Vancouver, facilitating the financial operations of Mexican, Latin American, and Chinese cartels across the Western Hemisphere.
“Tse [Chi Lop] has a long history here [in British Columbia],” one Canadian intelligence expert said. “He’s connected to Jin and the network out here.” Regarding the elite Sam Gor members associated with significant Columbia Valley properties, they added: “There’s state interaction with some key components of those groups.”
Shared from https://www.thebureau.news/p/exclusive-inside-bcs-cultus-lake
Wilful Blindness: Foreign Interference | Elite and State Capture | How a Criminal Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP Agents Infiltrated the West
Paperback – Oct. 22 2024 Click here to purchase from Amazon
Wilful Blindness, Foreign Interference, and Elite and State Capture build on the compelling narrative that has cemented Samuel Cooper’s reputation as a premier investigative journalist, now under the banner of The Bureau. Hybrid Warfare does not involve firing a single shot but rather winning the hearts and minds of those in power to influence the decision-making apparatus.
Tse Chi Lop is the man most suspected of being the leader of a crime and drug trafficking syndicate known only as “The Company”, an Asian drug ring so massive it earned Tse Chi Lop the nickname “Asia’s El Chapo”.
The Company is known locally as Sam Gor and it’s so wealthy, sophisticated and disciplined that when international authorities managed to stop The Company’s main drug ships, the ring simply switched to using containers to hide the drugs. This habit of thinking on their feet and pivoting on a dime has served them well.
Timestamp 07:35:
The Company is known as Sam Gor
‘Truly terrifying’: Chinese suppliers flood US and Canada with deadly fentanyl
By David Armstrong April 5, 2016
The dozen packages were shipped from China to mail centers and residences in Southern California. One box was labeled as a “Hole Puncher.”
In fact, it was a quarter-ton pill press, which federal investigators allege was destined for a suburban Los Angeles drug lab. The other packages, shipped throughout January and February, contained materials for manufacturing fentanyl, an opioid so potent that in some forms it can be deadly if touched.
When it comes to the illegal sale of fentanyl, most of the attention has focused on Mexican cartels that are adding the drug to heroin smuggled into the United States. But Chinese suppliers are providing both raw fentanyl and the machinery necessary for the assembly-line production of the drug powering a terrifying and rapid rise of fatal overdoses across the United States and Canada, according to drug investigators and court documents.
“We have seen an influx of fentanyl directly from China,” said Carole Rendon, the acting US attorney for the northern district of Ohio in Cleveland. “It’s being shipped by carrier. It’s hugely concerning because fentanyl is so incredibly deadly.”
The China connection is allowing local drug dealers in North America to mass produce fentanyl in pill form, in some cases producing tablets that look identical to an oft-abused version of the prescription painkiller OxyContin. It also has been added to Xanax pills. And last week, fentanyl pills made to resemble the painkiller hydrocodone were blamed for a wave of overdoses in the Sacramento area, including nine deaths.
The fentanyl pills are often disguised as other painkillers because those drugs fetch a higher price on the street, even though they are less potent, according to police.
The Southern California lab was just one of four dismantled by law enforcement in the United States and Canada in March.
In British Columbia, police took down a lab at a custom car business that was allegedly shipping 100,000 fentanyl pills a month to nearby Calgary, Alberta where 90 people overdosed on the drug last year. The investigation began when border authorities intercepted a package in December containing pharmaceutical equipment. Police would not describe the equipment but told STAT it came from China.
Federal agents shut down a Seattle lab set up in the bedroom of a home in a residential neighborhood. Similarly, investigators last week raided a suburban Syracuse, N.Y. residence that police charged was a “Fentanyl Processing Mill.” Investigators found six people inside the home mixing and packaging the drug and seized enough fentanyl to make 5,866 doses. As they entered the home, police reportedly were warned by the alleged dealers not to touch the fentanyl without gloves because of its potency.
The emergence of decentralized drug labs using materials obtained from China — and often ordered over the Internet — makes it more difficult to combat the illicit use of the drug.
“We had a spike in 2007” of fentanyl-related deaths, said Russell Baer, a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. “We traced it to a single production lab in Mexico and the deaths went away. Now, it is not restricted to one site.”
Fentanyl is legally used to treat people with severe pain, often after surgery, but this prescription fentanyl is not the source of most of the illegal trade.
People who unknowingly take fentanyl — either in pill form or when cut into heroin — can easily overdose because it is up to 100 times more potent than morphine and many times that of heroin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It works quickly, and multiple doses of the antidote naloxone are often required to reverse an overdose.
US health and law enforcement officials began warning of a spike in fentanyl deaths last year, a trend that has continued into this year. Fentanyl has surpassed heroin as a killer in several locales. A recent report by the CDC identified 998 fatal fentanyl overdoses in Ohio in 2014 and the first five months of 2015. Last month, federal prosecutors in Cleveland charged a local man with selling blue pills that appeared to be 30 milligram doses of the milder painkiller oxycodone. When tested, the 925 pills in his possession turned out to be fentanyl.
“One of the truly terrifying things is the pills are pressed and dyed to look like oxycodone,” said Rendon. “If you are using oxycodone and take fentanyl not knowing it is fentanyl, that is an overdose waiting to happen. Each of those pills is a potential overdose death.”
In Calgary, the fentanyl pills were produced to look similar to a version of OxyContin that was easily abused before it was replaced in 2012 by a tamper-resistant form, according to police. The pills are the same shade of green as OxyContin and are marked “80”, which was a frequently abused dosage of the drug. On the street, the fentanyl pills are called “shady 80s,” said Calgary Police Sergeant. Martin Schiavetta. They are sold for about $20 a pill, and some addicts take 15 to 20 pills a day.
“We have tracked the import from China,” Schiavetta said of fentanyl sold in the Canadian city. “The dealers ask for fentanyl powder and there are websites that guarantee delivery. If it is stopped at the border, they will send you a new one.” He said the packages are labeled as different products, such as car parts.
In Edmonton, Alberta, police inspector Dwayne Lakusta said fentanyl and pill presses are coming from China. “It is getting worse,” he said of that city’s fentanyl problem. “We will be battling this every day moving forward.”
Federal agents in Southern California became aware of the fentanyl operation there when a US Customs and Border Protection agent discovered a commercial pill press being sent from China to Gary Resnik, a Long Beach, Calif., man who has since been charged in the drug ring along with three other men.
Resnik allegedly set up a company called “Beyond Your Dreams” to order the machine, which was shipped through Los Angeles International Airport by a Chinese company called Capsulcn International, according to court records. Those records allege the Chinese company has a history of shipping pill presses to customers in the United States using fake shipping labels. Attempts to identify a specific location of the company and contact information were unsuccessful.
Federal agents eventually seized six pill presses they allege were used by the Southern California dealers. Each machine could produce thousands of pills an hour.
The dealers allegedly operated one lab out of a single-story home they rented in Baldwin Park, Calif. Investigators believe none of the men arrested actually lived there. DEA agents and technicians wearing bright-yellow hazardous material suits shut down the lab on March 15.
A storage unit was rented to house supplies and equipment. Agents also discovered handwritten notes listing ingredients and mixtures necessary to manufacture the fentanyl pills, according to court records.
The drug allegedly sold by the Los Angeles dealers was a fentanyl analog, called acetyl fentanyl, which has a slightly different chemical composition. Federal investigators have identified a dozen analogs of fentanyl produced in clandestine labs, all of which act similarly in the body to heroin, with the exception of being more potent.
China last year made it illegal to export acetyl fentanyl, a move that drew praise from US officials. However, several police agencies in North America say the drug continues to stream out of the country.
A report this month from the Department of State’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs found China remains a major producer and exporter of drugs like fentanyl for illicit international markets. The country’s vast chemical and pharmaceutical industries — combined with lax regulation, low production costs, and government corruption — make China an “ideal source” for the export of materials needed in illicit drug production, according to the report.
In an affidavit, DEA agent Lindsey Bellomy said that based on wire transfers and other evidence, she “strongly believes” the Southern California group acquired its fentanyl from China. The affidavit lists a dozen deliveries from China to members of the group in January and February.
When police stopped one customer after he allegedly purchased fentanyl from the group, he was found to have “several thousand pills” later determined to be acetyl fentanyl by lab technicians. The customer told police he purchased drugs from the group every couple of days, and that he, in turn, sold his buyers a minimum of 1,000 pills, a quantity known as “a boat.”
Shared from https://www.statnews.com/2016/04/05/fentanyl-traced-to-china/
RCMP says it has shut down ‘illegal police activity’ connected to alleged Chinese ‘police stations’
The police service hasn’t said if it has made arrests – June 1 2023
The RCMP says it has “shut down illegal police activity in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia” connected to so-called Chinese “police stations” — but it hasn’t said whether it has made any arrests.
In April, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told a parliamentary committee the federal police service had taken decisive action to close down the alleged stations.
According to the Spain-based human rights watchdog group Safeguard Defenders, more than 100 such facilities exist worldwide in more than 50 countries.
The U.S. is cracking down on Chinese ‘police stations’ with a tool Canada still doesn’t have
Alleged Chinese police stations still open in Quebec, despite minister’s claims
Safeguard Defenders claims the stations serve to monitor Chinese nationals and persuade those suspected of committing crimes to return to China to face prosecution.
The Chinese embassy denies those claims, saying the stations are meant to provide Chinese nationals with assistance with things like renewing driver’s licences.
The RCMP initially reported it was probing alleged “police stations” in the Greater Toronto Area last fall.
In mid-March, it announced it was also looking into reports of stations operating in Vancouver and investigating two Montreal-area groups.
Service a la Famille Chinoise du Grand Montreal and Centre Sino-Quebec de la Rive-Sud, which reportedly have served as resource centres for members of the Chinese community for decades, said they have co-operated with the RCMP’s investigation and no police action has been taken against them.
- Groups respond to allegations of operating as Chinese police stations in Quebec
- RCMP investigating Chinese ‘police’ stations in Canada
In a statement to CBC News, the RCMP said that some of the activity it’s investigating “is occurring at locations where other legitimate services to the Chinese Canadian Community are being offered.”
On Thursday, the prime minister’s national security and intelligence adviser Jody Thomas was questioned about the alleged stations while speaking before the standing committee on procedure and House affairs (PROC).
“You’re the national security adviser. How many of these police stations are still operating in Canada? Can you tell us?” asked Conservative MP Blaine Calkins.
“There [are] continual investigations by the RCMP into the police stations,” said Thomas.
- PM’s national security adviser says there’s been a ‘breakdown’ in how intelligence is shared
- O’Toole says CSIS told him he was targeted by Beijing during 2021 election
- CSIS officially directed to share more information with Parliamentarians under threat
“We are aware of two in Montreal and work is being done to ensure that they cease to operate.”
Thomas said Canadian citizens are often staffing the stations — in some cases unwittingly or under duress.
“The tools used by the RCMP to shut down the police stations, reduce their impact, reduce their credibility, is different in every situation, in every scenario,” said Thomas.
“There would be value in our ability to arrest people for them and those investigations are underway by the RCMP.”
The RCMP said it continues to investigate “transnational repression activity, and those responsible for transnational repression, to ensure Chinese and other Canadians are safe from foreign influence.”
Shared from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/rcmp-chinese-police-stations-1.6862336
RCMP dodges questions on Chinese ‘police stations’ still operating on Canadian soil
Deputy Commissioner Mark Flynn testified he was unable to speak about the matter due to an ongoing investigation by federal police
Sheila Gunn Reid | October 04, 2024
RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mark Flynn refused to confirm whether Chinese government “police stations” are still operating on Canadian soil during his appearance before the foreign interference inquiry. Flynn repeatedly cited an ongoing investigation as the reason for his silence.
“That again falls into part of our ongoing investigation and I’m not speaking about it at this time,” Flynn told reporters.
Thursday afternoon, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force’s Robin Wettlaufer explained investigations into the Chinese “police stations” were paused due to domestic byelections in 2023.
The RCMP has been investigating these covert Chinese-run “police stations” since 2023, with accusations that they were set up to harass and intimidate members of the Chinese Canadian community.
In June of the same year, RCMP claimed to have shut down illegal operations in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.
Despite the Chinese government’s claim that these centres exist solely to assist Chinese tourists and their diaspora, Canadian intelligence suggests these facilities are tools of transnational repression for the Chinese Communist Party.
Shared from https://www.rebelnews.com/rcmp_dodges_questions_on_chinese_police_stations_still_operating_on_canadian_soil
Safeguard Defenders
Safeguard Defenders, a human rights NGO co-founded by Peter Dahlin and Michael Caster in 2016, is dedicated to protecting and promoting human rights, the rule of law, and civil society in Asia, with a focus on China and Vietnam. Operating as a private foundation registered in Spain, the organization conducts investigative research, provides legal training, and supports persecuted activists.
Its ground-breaking reports, notably 110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild and subsequent follow-up Patrol and Persuade (2022), exposed a network of alleged “CCP police stations” in Canada and globally, identifying seven such sites in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. These stations, linked to Chinese public security bureaus, are accused of extraterritorial policing, including monitoring and coercing Chinese nationals, prompting RCMP investigations and raising concerns about Canadian sovereignty.
110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild
Patrol and Persuade: A Follow-Up Investigation to 110 Overseas
No Good Reason to Invite Head of Suspected Chinese Police Stations to Campaign Event
By Phil Gurski 4/22/2025
More than 2 million Canadians voted on the first day of advance polls for this year’s federal election, which according to Elections Canada was a record turnout. That was on Good Friday (April 18), and I’m sure the high numbers were due in part to the stores being closed and the day being a stat holiday. I worked at a polling station and can attest to how busy we were.
In an era of declining participation in the very essence of democracy, a high voter turnout is indeed a good sign. Perhaps Canadians sense the importance of this election more than in recent years (the return of the unpredictable Trump administration, the state of the economy/stock market/tariffs, international instability, foreign interference, etc.) and that is driving this surge. In any event, kudos to Canadians.
Those running for office should also welcome this development. After all, they believe enough in the system to want to be part of it. Candidates undoubtedly also want more people to come out to the debates and party events, rallies, public engagements, and other occasions, as they would expect to receive votes from such people.
It would be unfair to expect every candidate to know every person at such gatherings. Nevertheless, those running for office have teams that help them to ensure they are putting their best foot forward and not taking part in something that will later come back to bite them. In other words, people who can do some basic vetting of attendees whose presence would be, shall we say, problematic.
So why on earth would a candidate invite a person known to have associations with illegal Chinese “police stations” in Montreal? (These agencies allege they are here to deal with mundane issues like driver’s licences but are in fact venues facilitating foreign interference, influence, harassment and threatening of the Chinese diaspora in Canada.)
That is exactly what appears to have happened in the Quebec riding of Brossard-Saint-Lambert. Liberal incumbent Alexandra Mendès asked the head of not one but two local Chinese organizations suspected by the RCMP of housing illicit “police stations” supporting efforts to intimidate or silence critics of China’s ruling communist regime to a “rallying spaghetti dinner” for the 2025 federal election campaign.
Whether or not Ms. Mendès decided on the invitees’ list or it was one of her assistants misses the point. The existence of these unwanted agencies has been well-known for years. Ignorance is no excuse. Does no one care about the Chinese regime’s efforts to intimidate diaspora members? Is the burning desire to put “bums in seats” more important than our national security?
Despite efforts by some to label these concerns as examples of “anti-Asian racism,” this is just one more instance where politics trumps common sense. It should be added that these moves only serve to undermine trust in the community as a whole. (I’ve heard anecdotally that some see Asian Canadians working at polling stations as part of the “foreign influence” throng: If the public sees the government not taking this threat seriously it questions the whole process, even if some of the accusations are dubious.)
This may sound repetitive given the number of columns I have penned over the years, but the threat of foreign interference by China (and others) is real. Story after story in Canadian media shows many efforts by these nations to affect our democracy. That the government is paying lip service to this just makes things worse. The dearth of attention to Canadian intelligence over decades merely confirms this lack of interest.
The solution is simple. To borrow a phrase from former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, “trust but verify.” You want to be an open society and welcome wide participation, but it is vital to ensure that you are not being taken advantage of. Party officials need to do better and be much more judicious in not enabling those seeking to malign our democracy. They should do their due diligence and not embrace elements of foreign regimes.
Shared from https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/does-no-one-look-into-who-shows-up-at-candidates-events-5845696