The Bureau Podcast

This week on The Bureau Podcast, I speak with Jason James of BNN about Canada’s almost completely unknown crisis: major transnational drug-trafficking and money-laundering networks that either go uninvestigated or collapse before trial. From E-Pirate to E-Nationalize, Sindicato, Project Brisa, Project Cobra, Project Endgame, and a Quebec fentanyl super-lab network—every one of these high-stakes cases failed to reach conviction, some never prosecuted at all. The fallout from the Falkland super-lab case is still reverberating in President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada. The collapse of prosecutions in Canadian courts—and the failures of law enforcement and lawyers and legislatures behind them—have left U.S. enforcement partners deeply frustrated with their Canadian counterparts.We examine the roadblocks: Stinchcombe’s sweeping disclosure burdens, Jordan’s strict ceilings on trial delays, and a political reluctance in Ottawa to take on globally networked cartels and their financial enablers. With evidence bottlenecks, under-resourced prosecutors, and defense lawyers weaponizing procedure, the system virtually guarantees collapse for intelligence-driven cases. What would it take—legislative reform, resourcing, specialized courts? My answer: all of the above. But nothing will change until Canadians demand action, and political leaders in Ottawa finally muster the will.The gangs involved in these cases—Mexican cartels, Chinese state-linked Triads, Italian mafias, Middle Eastern state- and terror-linked groups, transnational Indian networks, along with metastasizing home-grown facilitators such as former Canadian Olympian Ryan Wedding’s operation, which worked with all of these foreign-backed threats—have only grown stronger and more deeply embedded because of Canada’s political and legal failures, Canadian policing sources insist.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

TORONTO — This week on The Bureau Podcast, we speak with Toronto lawyer and independent journalist Caryma Sa’d about her explosive claims that Discord — the same chat platform now under FBI scrutiny after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — is also being used inside Canada by Antifa-aligned networks to coordinate harassment campaigns and share dossiers on political targets.Sa’d describes Discord as a central hub, where tiered servers give vetted insiders access to “dox-style” files that go far beyond what is publicly available. She argues some of this information must come from people in positions of trust — teachers, union members, bureaucrats, even political staffers — who are feeding sensitive details into activist networks.She also connects these practices to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a federally funded NGO that she says has “assisted Antifa” and shaped government focus in a way that overlooks the risks of left-wing extremism. Public records confirm CAHN has received more than $900,000 from Ottawa since 2020. Sa’d contends this money is effectively underwriting political targeting in Canada.In our full conversation, she goes further. Sa’d speaks about:* Her own targeting: how she was profiled after declining to work with CAHN, and how swarming campaigns have tried to undermine her legal practice.* Police reluctance: her frustration that even when harassment is “verifiable and documented,” law enforcement often shrugs off complaints as political disputes.* The protest ecosystem: how Antifa-aligned cells blend with movements for Indigenous rights, migrant rights, trans rights, encampment occupations, and pro-Palestine rallies — creating what she calls a “solidarity banner” that can rapidly pivot narratives.* Amplification abroad: her concern that hostile states seize on Canadian protest footage, using it in information operations that echo broader foreign interference campaigns.“The Canadian Anti-Hate Network. I think this is the most obvious and in my view, shocking example. It is an NGO that purports to document and fight against specifically far right hate. And in having such a narrow focus, they're obviously ignoring everything else that happens. And, you know, they would probably say that it's not equivalent. The real dangers, the real threats, the real risk of violence, comes from the right, not from the left. And I think that that has created almost a vacuum of focus and interest that has allowed the far left to metastasize in the way that it conducts itself. The Anti-Hate network has been found by an Ontario court to have assisted the Antifa movement, which that same court decision recognizes has been violent. Anti-Hate in practice takes public money to put targets on private citizens and its base then gets riled up to act on the articles that they put out, whether that's mobilizing to try and cancel events, mobilizing to try to get people fired, so on and so forth. But it is sort of a smear factory, especially, and I say this because I've been the target of one of those hit pieces.” — Caryma Sa’dThe Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

Today on The Bureau Podcast: unpacking my reporting on an explosive Justice Department watchdog report that confirmed the worst kind of national security malpractice. A senior FBI counterintelligence official leaked case-critical information from the agency’s multi-year probe into CEFC China — the energy conglomerate that bribed United Nations officials while simultaneously attempting to draw the Biden family into a $100-million natural gas project in Louisiana, through a web of companies tied directly to a close associate of President Xi Jinping.On this episode I speak with Chris Meyer of Widefountain. Chris has spent years tracing CEFC’s global influence network — the money flows, the murky intermediaries — and he frames the new inspector-general findings as the latest revelation in a Chinese military intelligence operation that Chris calls a “shadowplay”: a deliberate, many-armed campaign that mixes kompromat and targeted interference aimed at dividing and distracting the U.S. government. The brilliance of China’s successful campaign — which succeeded in appropriating U.S. military technology — involves fracturing political institutions and inserting spies into those divisions to make the plunder of sensitive information easier, Chris argues.We’ll connect senior FBI agent Charles McGonigal’s leaks to the larger criminal tapestry. The CEFC probe in New York and at the United Nations touched figures charged in the Southern District — Patrick Ho and other CEFC executives — and it intersected with allegations of arms brokering, sanctions evasion, and influence peddling that prosecutors later tied to an accused operator now indicted as Gal Luft, the so-called “Target 3” in related filings. Chris ultimately links the CEFC case — in which James Biden was implicated in efforts to determine whether Patrick Ho, central to the CEFC influence play targeting the Bidens, would be arrested if he returned to the United States — to the earlier “Chinagate” scandal, which targeted the Clinton White House, and the GOP’s election fundraising networks during Newt Gingrich’s comeback era.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

VANCOUVER — In today’s Bureau podcast, Sam Cooper joins Jason James of BNN to probe the causes of RCMP non-cooperation before a U.S. Treasury sanction forced Canada’s police to investigate the Falkland superlab. The massive site in British Columbia contained enough precursor chemicals to manufacture 95 million lethal doses of fentanyl, exposing Canada’s deep links to Chinese and Mexican cartel networks.Sam traces how the case connects to decades of failures in Ottawa: RCMP resistance to joint investigations and U.S. intelligence sharing; entrenched cartel financiers from China working with Mexican lab operators and distributors; Iran-linked laundering and trafficking and terror-financing actors; and Indian crime groups dominating Canada’s transportation infrastructure.The discussion turns to the Cameron Ortis scandal, where the former RCMP intelligence chief was convicted of selling Five Eyes secrets to some of the very Vancouver-based Sinaloa Cartel and Iranian threat networks tied to the Falkland case. For Washington, the broader concern goes beyond legal loopholes — it points to possible corruption or high-level cover for foreign threat actors operating inside Canada.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

OTTAWA—LOS ANGELESIn today’s Bureau podcast, Sam Cooper and Chris Meyer of Widefountain dig into the dramatic escape of Zhi Dong Zhang — code-named “Chino” — from house arrest in Mexico City just as U.S. courts unsealed a 30-page detention memo. Born in Beijing in 1987, Zhang is alleged to have commanded both Chinese and Mexican wings of cartel operations, controlling 150 companies and 170 bank accounts, training operatives on U.S. soil, and bridging fentanyl precursor supply for both Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels.Sam and Chris compare Zhang’s role to Chi Lop Tse, the Toronto-based architect of Sam Gor, and Zhenli Ye Gon, the Mexico City meth baron with $207 million seized from his mansion. The discussion highlights how CCP-linked actors shaped these figures by controlling precursors, finance, and cartel connectivity — and how U.S. intelligence now openly states Beijing subsidizes fentanyl production abroad.The episode closes with reflections on Xi Jinping’s tightening but fragile grip on power. Chris details the reformist challenge inside the Party, the seaside conclave without a clear successor, and the unforgettable scene of Hu Jintao being escorted out of a Party Congress meeting. Together, Sam and Chris suggest Xi’s dominance is showing cracks, even as CCP influence over transnational crime continues to expand.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

In this episode of The Bureau Podcast, investigative journalist Sam Cooper sits down with Chris Meyer of WideFountain to trace the stunning global patterns of cartel, Triad, and Chinese Communist Party–linked networks penetrating legitimate trade structures to launder narcotics proceeds and move fentanyl and meth invisibly around the world.Together, they examine how cartels and Chinese Triads exploit commodities, corporate shells, and international trade routes—controlling entire sectors like oil, seafood, and luxury goods—as part of a new hybrid criminal statecraft that links Mexico, Canada, China, and beyond.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Key Themes in This Episode* Cartel Oil Corruption in MexicoWe break down a new U.S. indictment from Houston, charging Mexican nationals with bribing officials at Pemex. Documents suggest the scheme is one piece of a vast conspiracy in which cartels steal and smuggle crude oil across the U.S. border, refine it, and sell it globally—while laundering fentanyl and meth profits through the same pipelines of trade.* Casino Intel: Triads & Cartels in VancouverA classified Canadian source revealed explosive evidence seized from an underground Richmond mansion casino, where a Triad operative’s phone exposed over a thousand messages with Mexican cartel counterparts. Beyond drug logistics, the communications showed how these groups use commodities—everything from avocados and limes to geoduck clams and lobsters—to wash dirty money through trade-based laundering.* Historic Parallels: The Lai Changxing Smuggling EmpireCooper and Meyer revisit the case that first brought them together—Lai Changxing’s notorious Xiamen-based smuggling syndicate. At its core, Meyer argues, Lai’s contraband empire was not just about oil, narcotics, and luxury goods, but a covert PRC military intelligence operation. The parallels to today’s cartel-Triad partnerships are striking.Why It Matters* Trade-based money laundering (TBML) has become the central node where narcotics, corruption, and geopolitics converge.* The same methods that once fueled Lai Changxing’s empire now enable Mexican cartels and Triads to move fentanyl proceeds at scale, under the radar of Western regulators.* With governments often paralyzed or complicit, these networks function as a “shadow state” embedded in legitimate economies—from Vancouver real estate and casinos, to Mexican energy, to global shipping routes.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

In this sweeping conversation with Jason James of BNN, I discuss some of The Bureau’s biggest investigations of the summer — including the widening pattern of prosecutorial failures in major synthetic narcotics and money laundering cases in British Columbia. We spotlight the recent collapse of charges against a Chinese-state linked scientist accused of importing over 100 kilograms of precursors for MDMA production.I connect the networks involved to entities previously entangled in the RCMP’s infamous E-Pirate probe, then broaden the lens to examine organized crime's penetration of British Columbia institutions — including the province’s auto insurer.We also dig into the geopolitical and financial stakes behind Premier David Eby and BC Ferries’ controversial $1-billion deal to build vessels in China with a military-linked state shipyard — a project reportedly financed through a federal development bank overseen by Canada’s new Housing Minister, Gregor Robertson. As Vancouver’s former mayor, Robertson and his council were previously embroiled in questions surrounding Chinese political influence and real estate investment in British Columbia. The question of foreign investment in Canadian cities has returned to the forefront in Victoria and Ottawa.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

OTTAWA — A prominent former Canadian Special Forces operator who continues to train law enforcement says his former unit, Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2), should be granted the authorities and mandate to target fentanyl superlabs and dismantle the transnational narco-terror networks now embedding across Canada — from Chinese Communist Party proxies to cartel cells crossing the southern B.C. border with grenades and Mexican passports.“This is our problem. It’s on our soil,” former JTF2 member Randy Turner says in an exchange with investigative reporter Sam Cooper of The Bureau. “And our kids are the ones that are going to feel the wrath of it. So we need to do something about it — and do something about it right now.”This unique back-and-forth interview — with Turner questioning Cooper on his expertise and prescription for better national security outcomes in North America, and Cooper in turn questioning Turner — has also been posted to Turner’s Direct Action podcast.Midway through the conversation, Cooper puts the national security question bluntly: now that Ottawa has followed the Trump administration’s lead and designated Mexican cartels operating on Canadian soil as terror entities, should JTF2 be granted clearance and authority to target transnational narco-terror threats inside Canada?Framing the discussion, Cooper notes that — just as U.S. national security officials like Kash Patel have said — it is cartel syndicates working with Chinese Communist Party and Iranian threat networks, particularly in cities like Vancouver, that encapsulate the deadly scourge of fentanyl killing tens of thousands of young North Americans every year.He presses the point: should the cartels and Chinese networks now operating in Canada be considered executable targets for JTF2, which is mandated to counter terror threats on Canadian soil?Cooper points to evidence in court records — including arrests of cartel operatives at a house in Surrey, British Columbia, where police seized grenades, dozens of Mexican passports, and heavy weaponry consistent with open warfare.Turner’s answer is unequivocal. “We have forces and people and professionals and talented individuals that have a solution to these problems. Let them do their work.”“There’s pieces and parts to ensure successful missions like this go off — but it would start with policy change,” he explained. “And it would start with having a legitimate conversation about: what action steps are we going to put into place right now? What can we change? And why have we not yet? There are some things that could have been put in place years ago.”“I think part of that is the public conversation,” Cooper responded. “First, knowing we have the capabilities. Second, admitting we have the problem.Yeah — our borders have been weak.Yeah — we do have fentanyl superlabs.Yeah — Vancouver and Toronto are laundering trillions — over a trillion dollars, my research shows — from these networks.“And it’s impacting every part of your life, and your children’s lives to come. Can they compete for a home?”Throughout the conversation, which traces both of their professional paths, Cooper explains why he sought out Turner for personal defense training. It followed a judicially authorized RCMP warning in July 2023: Cooper had been identified as a target of transnational repression due to his reporting on People’s Republic of China operations in Canada.Like some of Turner’s other private clients, Cooper chose to train with someone who understood the terrain — hostile surveillance, targeted intimidation, and potential conflict.In a wide-ranging exchange covering national security policy and what both described as Canada’s cultural blindness to foreign threats, Turner delivered a blunt message. He criticized what he sees as a passive-aggressive Canadian response to increasingly urgent warnings from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement — and called for a national shift in mindset.“Sometimes I get fired up,” Turner said. “And I will sometimes say things that are, you know, rightfully emotionally driven. It’s because I give a s**t. And I’m also very wide awake to what’s going on.“Until we start, as a Canadian collective, coming together, working together, and sharing these ideas with each other and actually taking a stance — it’s only gonna get worse. And for Canadians out there that believe otherwise, you need to get your head out of the sand, look up, and shake your head a little bit. Take heed to what’s actually happening right here in Canada.”“I’ve said before, let’s apply the passion we do to the hockey playoffs to other things going on in the country,” Cooper responded. “If someone runs your goalie, you don’t let that stand. We’re letting our country be run over.”The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

OTTAWA / LOS ANGELES — In this discussion with Chris Meyer of Widefountain, we dig deeper into my findings on an explosive narcotics precursor case quietly dropped by Canadian prosecutors—and what it reveals about Canada's growing vulnerabilities to foreign infiltration.We unpack the story of a Chinese chemist, known here as Dr. X, who was charged with importing more than 100 kilograms of PMK ethyl glycidate—a key chemical used in the production of MDMA (ecstasy). Court records in combination with open source findings show Dr. X had direct ties to a bio-pharmaceutical firm affiliated with the University of British Columbia, and was reportedly recruited under Beijing’s “Thousand Talents Plan”—a program U.S. intelligence agencies warn is used to facilitate espionage and the transfer of dual-use technologies.The case forms part of a broader pattern uncovered by The Bureau and Widefountain, pointing to Chinese state-linked facilitation of poly-drug trafficking and money laundering operations across the Western Hemisphere.This episode raises urgent questions about the deepening intersection between synthetic drug networks and foreign interference efforts operating within Canada.We explore new revelations from The Bureau’s reporting, including:* Dr. X’s links to community groups operating under the CCP’s United Front Work Department, Beijing’s overseas influence arm.* Her affiliation with Zhejiang University, an institution flagged for ties to China’s Ministry of State Security.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

OTTAWA/LOS ANGELES — Chris Meyer of Widefountain returns to question The Bureau on findings from The Quiet Invasion—a landmark timeline investigation into how Vancouver became a beachhead for transnational organized crime and Chinese hybrid warfare. What began in the late 1980s as low-profile infiltration by Chinese Triads has evolved into a full-spectrum crisis involving encrypted telecoms, fentanyl superlabs, and political access reaching Canada’s highest offices. In this episode, Meyer and Sam Cooper discuss the range of findings, including Canadian vulnerabilities now believed to be of deep concern to the U.S. government.For example, one firm in a cluster of Vancouver-based encrypted communications companies—linked to Mexican cartels, Hezbollah narco-terror networks, and PRC-affiliated clients, and flagged by U.S. agencies—was found to share an address with a chemical import business. That company received at least 85 tons of precursor chemicals used in the production of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and MDMA. The shipments coincided with the early explosion of fentanyl overdoses across Canada—and what Five Eyes enforcement experts now identify as a dual-threat: a tech front shielding cartel and Chinese actors, while facilitating the chemical backbone of the opioid crisis.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

OTTAWA–LOS ANGELES — In this special investigative discussion, Sam Cooper sits down with Chris Meyer of WideFountain to dissect the Chinese Communist Party’s long game—and its convergence with transnational organized crime—in infiltrating North America’s western front.As The Bureau prepares a sweeping timeline investigation into Chinese, Mexican, and Iranian threat networks saturating Vancouver, Meyer offers a penetrating historical lens: tracing how CCP leadership, beginning in the Deng Xiaoping era, allegedly embraced corruption, money laundering, and narcotics as instruments of geopolitical disruption aimed squarely at the West.Together, Cooper and Meyer begin connecting the transpacific dots—from encrypted communications firms and the emergence of fentanyl labs in Vancouver, to the rise of Sam Gor, China’s most powerful narco-trafficking syndicate, and its suspected ties to Beijing’s internal security apparatus. They examine how United Front and military intelligence strategies, launched more than four decades ago, set out to infiltrate North America—beginning with Los Angeles and Vancouver, while simultaneously targeting the White House—through ports, political networks, and elite capture.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

In this urgent breaking edition of The Bureau, investigative journalist Sam Cooper connects with frequent contributor Adam Zivo, live from Jerusalem, as day six of the war between Israel and Iran unfolds. Despite headlines warning of global escalation, Zivo reports a surprisingly calm atmosphere in Israel—even as tensions peak with Iran’s Supreme Leader threatening “irreparable damage” should the United States join Israel’s military operations.Zivo shares that the Israeli public has largely accepted direct conflict with Iran as inevitable, viewing the regime in Tehran—the “big boss” of proxy militias across the region—as the true adversary. In a shift, many Israelis, he says, believe military focus should pivot away from Gaza and directly toward Iran.Meanwhile, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed President Trump’s call for “unconditional surrender” in a televised statement, warning that U.S. military intervention would be met with devastating consequences. Trump, who has signaled reluctance to enter another Middle East war, warned this week that “our patience is wearing thin.”As the conflict deepens, this episode brings rare insight into how Israel is absorbing the war’s escalation—and where public opinion may be pushing next.Key Topics:* Zivo’s firsthand account of Jerusalem’s mood amid war* Public sentiment in Israel on Iran vs. Gaza* The potential for U.S. military involvement* Strategic implications of a broader regime-targeting campaignListen now for exclusive on-the-ground reporting and sharp geopolitical analysis from The Bureau.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

In this episode, Sam Cooper sits down with Jason James of BNN to examine The Bureau's months-long investigation into the convergence of Chinese state-backed fentanyl networks, Mexican cartels, and Iranian proxy groups. The conversation revisits key findings from Wilful Blindness (2021), which first exposed how Vancouver’s port and economy were exploited as gateways for China’s transnational narcotics and money laundering operations.Together, Sam and Jason unpack why U.S. authorities are now publicly affirming the very networks and vulnerabilities previously dismissed in Canada—and why, despite mounting evidence, a bloc within Canadian politics and media continues to fiercely deny the scope of the threat.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

Sam welcomes back Chris Meyer from Wide Fountain to break down The Bureau’s explosive reporting with retired DEA agent Don Im—and the chilling implications of what Im and other U.S. experts describe as a “reverse Opium War.”They trace the roots of Beijing’s alleged silent role in a vast narcotics-finance system: a web of Triads, Communist Party actors, and Western enablers laundering drug proceeds through legitimate trade. From fentanyl warehouses in Vancouver to encrypted cash auctions on WeChat, this is a global operation—sophisticated, deliberate, and devastating.Chris and Sam explore how Donald Trump’s trade war exposed fractures in a covert global economy—and why emerging signals from within China suggest Xi Jinping’s grip on power may be weakening. As the West confronts the mounting toll of fentanyl, Chris calls for a bipartisan reckoning: no more trade without accountability—and reparations.This isn’t just a narco story. It’s a story of power, profit, politics—and a clash of civilizations.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

Welcome back to The Bureau. Today, we bring you a special cross-border collaboration—linking explosive findings from rural Maine to revelations inside Vancouver’s shadow economy.Joining me is Steve Robinson, the investigative editor who got the ball rolling on a major story tying an illegal marijuana operation in Maine to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department—Beijing’s foreign influence and intelligence arm. Steve’s reporting for The Maine Wire—later advanced by the Daily Caller News Foundation—traces how a so-called community group in New York City, the Sijiu Association, maintains close ties to the Chinese Consulate and has pledged financial support to United Front projects.These findings echo what The Bureau has uncovered in Canada, where United Front operatives have used legalization as cover for a sprawling cannabis export and laundering network. In Vancouver, Toronto, and remote parts of British Columbia and Ontario especially, United Front-linked triads have quietly consolidated legal cannabis licenses, exploited illegal migrant labor, and shipped massive volumes of marijuana to the United States and Japan, with inroads to Europe too—laundering the proceeds back through Canadian banks.In this episode, Steve and I will compare notes, connect the dots, and expose how these networks—rooted in state-directed influence and organized crime—are reshaping the underground economy across North America, just as FBI scrutiny intensifies.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

In this special episode, investigative Sinologist Chris Meyer of Wide Fountain joins The Bureau to dissect a deeply troubling picture emerging from our reporting—one that places Canada at the center of a global narcotics and money laundering operation with ties to Chinese intelligence.At the heart of the conversation: Chi Lap Tse, also known as Sam Gor, or “The Third Son”—the elusive boss of a transnational criminal organization trafficking fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, ketamine, methamphetamine and cannabis globally into the Americas, using Canada as a production, transshipment and money laundering hub for China. Based on assessments of The Bureau’s multiple investigations, including DEA and RCMP intelligence, and his research into Chinese history, Meyer argues that Tse and his “Big Circle Boys” associates are not just drug traffickers—but state-trained commanders whose operations benefit, and in some cases are subtly directed by, the Chinese Communist Party.We revisit my recent exposé on a mysterious 30-acre estate in B.C.’s Columbia Valley—just steps from the U.S. border—tied to Tse, a senior Chinese security figure, United Front-linked mining and chemical interests, and convicted Sam Gor narcotics traffickers like Ye Long Yong. According to RCMP sources, the property has been flagged for cross-border helicopter smuggling, association to high-level money laundering, cannabis, and a nexus of geopolitical friction between Ottawa and Washington.Meyer connects the dots between Canada’s exploitation by United Front mafias and those that architected their global operations in southern China, where Xi Jinping’s backers wield tremendous regional influence that has captured the balance of power in Beijing, according to Wide Fountain’s reports.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

In this podcast discussion with Jason James, I break down Prime Minister Mark Carney’s highly cynical—yet highly successful—election campaign, and explore the implications of three major recent investigations by The Bureau:* A deeper dive into Chinese Communist Party operations targeting Canada’s Parliament, including new details on threats against Conservative candidate Joseph Tay and his family in Hong Kong. (Recall that the Liberal Party previously turned a blind eye to Chinese secret police targeting of MP Michael Chong’s relatives in Hong Kong.)* The United Front’s quiet takeover of Canada’s legal cannabis market, using licensed grow-ops and brokerage houses as fronts for laundering and trafficking.* The DEA’s frustrations after being stonewalled in a 40-kilogram carfentanil seizure case in Toronto—an investigation with suspected links to Chinese and Pakistani transnational threat networks. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

TAIWAN — The HIMARS roar that echoed off the coastal mountains of southern Taiwan this week was more than a weapons test. It was a declaration of deterrence.From their perch at Jiupeng military base—where steep green ridges descend toward the Pacific—Taiwanese forces fired the U.S.-made rocket artillery system in a live-fire display designed to show how the island is transforming itself into a fortress of modern asymmetric warfare. The Taiwanese unit conducting the test had trained with U.S. forces in Oklahoma in 2024, and this week’s exercise marked the first time they demonstrated their proficiency with HIMARS on home soil.The HIMARS platform—demonstrated in footage provided to The Bureau from Taiwan Plus—signals a decisive shift toward a mobile, nimble defensive force designed to face overwhelming scale. Unlike fixed missile sites or air bases—prime targets expected to be destroyed within hours of a PLA first-wave assault—truck-mounted HIMARS units can slip into position, launch a strike, and quickly vanish into Taiwan’s jungle-thick terrain and cliffside roads. These launchers are meant to hide, hit, and move—relying on camouflage, speed, and the natural topography of the island to stay alive and strike again.This transformation had been quietly underway for years. In September 2023, The Bureau met with Taiwanese military strategists and international journalists at a closed-door roundtable in Taipei. Among them was a Ukrainian defense consultant—invited to share hard-won battlefield lessons from Kyiv’s resistance. The strategist told the group that the most crucial lesson for Taiwan was psychological: to instill in citizens and soldiers alike the will to prepare for aggression that seems impossible and illogical, before it arrives. “You must believe the worst can happen,” the Ukraine vet said.That same week in Taipei, Taiwan’s then-Foreign Minister Joseph Wu made the case directly in an interview:“There's a growing consensus among the key analysts in the United States and also in Taiwan that war is not inevitable and the war is not imminent,” Wu said. “And we have been making significant investment in our own defense—not just increasing our military budget, but also engaging serious military reforms, in the sense of asymmetric strategy and asymmetric capability.”That principle now guides Taiwan’s evolving force posture. The May 12 HIMARS test—launching precision-guided rockets into a Pacific exclusion zone—was the first public demonstration of the mobile artillery system since the U.S. delivered the first batch in late 2024. With a range of 300 kilometers, HIMARS provides not only mobility but standoff power, allowing Taiwan’s forces to strike amphibious staging areas, beachheads, and ships from hardened inland positions. Lockheed Martin engineers observed the drills, which were broadcast across Taiwanese news networks as both a military signal and psychological campaign.The live-fire exercise also marked the debut of the Land Sword II, a domestically developed surface-to-air missile system designed to counter diverse aerial threats, including cruise missiles, aircraft, and drones. Land Sword II adds a mobile, all-weather air defense layer to Taiwan’s increasingly dense multi-domain network. By deploying it alongside HIMARS, Taiwan demonstrated its commitment to building overlapping shields—striking at invading forces while protecting its launch platforms from aerial suppression.But these new missile systems are only the tip of the spear.Taiwan’s military has quietly abandoned the vestiges of a Cold War posture centered on fleet battles and long-range missile parity with the mainland. Defense officials now concede that attempts to match Beijing plane-for-plane or ship-for-ship are a dead end. Instead, inspired by the “porcupine” concept outlined by retired U.S. Marines and intelligence officials, Taiwan is remaking itself into a smart, lethal archipelago fortress—one where unmanned drones, dispersed missile cells, and underground fiber-linked command posts neutralize China’s numerical advantage.Wu, who now serves as Secretary-General of Taiwan’s National Security Council, has been one of the doctrine’s most consistent advocates. In his writings and interviews, Wu points to Ukraine’s ability to hold off a vastly superior invader through mobility, deception, and smart munitions. “We are not seeking parity. We are seeking survivability,” he wrote in Foreign Affairs. “And if we survive, we win.”A New Arsenal of Ideas: From Silicon Valley to the Taiwan StraitIf Ukraine showed the value of agile, off-the-shelf technologies on the battlefield, Taiwan seems poised to go a step further—by integrating cutting-edge systems developed not by defense contractors, but by Silicon Valley insurgents.Among the most closely watched innovators is Palmer Luckey, the former Oculus founder whose defense firm, Anduril Industries, is quietly revolutionizing battlefield autonomy. Through its Dive Technologies division and flagship Ghost and Bolt drone platforms, Anduril builds AI-guided aerial and underwater drones capable of swarming enemy ships, submarines, and even mines—exactly the kinds of systems Taiwan could deploy along its maritime approaches and chokepoints.Luckey, who visited Japan and South Korea in early 2025 to brief U.S. allies on asymmetric AI warfare, has warned that in a Taiwan invasion scenario, the side with better autonomous targeting and tracking could determine victory before a single human-fired missile is launched.“The PLA is betting big on AI,” he told Business Insider. “If Taiwan and the U.S. don’t match that, we’re done.”Much of this strategy finds intellectual backing in The Boiling Moat, a 2024 strategy volume edited by former U.S. National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger. The book proposes a multi-layered defense of Taiwan that includes hardened ground troops, swarming drones, portable anti-ship missiles, and AI battlefield networking.Pottinger argues that Taiwan must become “the toughest target on earth”—a phrase now common among Taiwanese officers briefing American delegations. Speaking to NPR last year, Pottinger noted that Taiwan’s survival doesn’t rest on matching China’s power, but on “convincing Beijing that the price of conquest will be far too high to bear.”The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

This week on The Bureau, we examine one of the most urgent and politically charged stories in Canada: the crisis surrounding government-issued “safer supply.”I’m joined by Adam Zivo, the investigative reporter who broke many of the key stories exposing the unintended—and often devastating—consequences of Canada’s drug policy experiment. Together, we unpack how federal and provincial “safer supply” programs, originally designed as harm-reduction tools, have instead become conduits for organized crime. In some regions, like London, Ontario—where fentanyl once had little presence—the program has triggered an influx of potent opioids and fueled new criminal markets.We’ll explore what’s really happening on the ground, why this issue matters in Canada’s federal election on Monday, and which political parties are pledging to reverse course—or maintain the status quo, even as overdose deaths surge and fentanyl floods our streets.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe