December 2, 2025 • 19 mins
Investigative journalist Sam Cooper returns to the One CA Podcast to expose how Iran weaponizes criminality to advance foreign policy goals.
From Hezbollah’s business affairs unit to fentanyl super-labs in Canada, Cooper traces the global footprint of Iranian-linked networks—intertwined with Chinese triads, Mexican cartels, and diaspora businessmen operating across North America.
In this gripping episode, we explore:
- How underground banking and hawala systems fund terror proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas
- The role of vape shops, car exports, and currency exchanges in laundering money
- Why Canada’s outdated laws and Charter protections hinder transnational crime enforcement
- DEA wiretaps revealing command-and-control links between Latin America and Canadian cities
- The growing civil society push for reform—and the political resistance it faces
Cooper also shares firsthand insights into speaking engagements, commercial sector concerns, and the fragile hope for legal modernization in Canada.
One CA Podcast is a production of the Civil Affairs Association, featuring voices from military, diplomatic, and development communities working at the human level of global engagement.
📨 Contact us at CApodcasting@gmail.com🌐 Learn more at civilaffairsassoc.org🎧 Ranked Top 10 Foreign Policy Podcast by Feedspot: See the list🎵 Music by Relax Café: Sunny Jazz Cafe & Bossa Nova
Sam Cooper posts on Iran criminality:
https://samcooper.substack.com/p/iranian-criminal-networks-and-canadas
https://samcooper.substack.com/p/from-guangdong-peasant-to-funder
https://samcooper.substack.com
Addition: Whale Hunter article on Iran’s shadow fleet: https://whalehunting.projectbrazen.com/when-irans-invisible-fleet-lit-up-the-map/?ref=whale-hunting-newsletter
#HumanDomain #IrregularWarfare #CivilAffairs #StrategicCoercion #TransnationalCrime #FentanylCrisis #InformationWarfare #SOFTraining #DefenseInnovation #OneCAPodcast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the ONE CA podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines.
ONE CA is a product of the CivilAffairs Association and brings
in people who are current or former military diplomats,
development officers, and field agents to discuss their
experiences on ground with a partner nation's people and
leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone
interested in working the last three feet of Foreign Relations.
(00:24):
To contact the show, e-mail us at ca.podcasting@gmail.com or
look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at
www.civilaffairsassos.org. I'll have those in the show
notes. Today we welcome back Sam
Cooper, an investigative journalist and founder of The
Bureau News Outlet. Sam has written and reported on
(00:45):
Iran's use of criminality and proxies to raise money and
conduct global influence, and now we sit down to discuss his
findings. My work started kind of from the
bottom side in Canada, just looking straight into criminal
networks which were linked to the Middle East and I discovered
were majorly involved in car thefts in Canada and then
(01:07):
sending cars off to Dubai. That was impacting Canadian
society, but it wasn't understood how that linked into
financing wars in the Middle East or terror attacks.
And so looking into Middle Eastern and diaspora networks
from very influential and proportionately large in Canada,
(01:28):
you've got these large communities that have largely
come from Iran and across the Middle East, very influential in
business. But I learned that some very
sophisticated businessmen were linked not only to organize
crime. So we're talking about human
trafficking, you know, money laundering, narcotics, weapons,
(01:49):
but tied to the Iranian guards, which is that high level proof
of men that controls everything from politics to business to
crime. And whenever Iran comes up
against state sanctions, whetherit's to deal with their use of
the financial system or nuclear proliferation, they then go to
that playbook of using their underground operators worldwide,
(02:13):
especially in Canadian cities, to move funds.
And those funds are flowing backto Iran and back to Hamas, back
to Hezbollah. So, in other words, funding wars
in the Middle East. So what are some indicators that
helped you find these diaspora members that were supporting
Iran? It's a great question.
(02:33):
In Canada, my leadership in world journalism has been
discovering how underground banking links to large diaspora
communities, starting with Chinaand then Iran, is involved in
purportedly legitimate movement of funds from China into Canada
or from Iran into Canada. But in my view, almost always
(02:57):
criminal because people are getting around capital controls
or sanctions. They're using what's called
community bankers who really areaccessing pools of drug cash.
So it's called hawala in the Middle Eastern terminology, the
Vancouver model. As I exposed in Canada, I, for
example, got leaked British Columbia government casino
(03:19):
records on the China side that pointed to these wealthy
businessmen from China connecting with gang loan sharks
in Vancouver and getting massiveamounts of cash and walking into
government casinos. So this was part of that
underground banking world in China.
Similarly, in Iran, there's a massive amount of currency
(03:41):
exchanges in Vancouver, Toronto,Montreal, storefront currency
exchanges and purportedly legal operations.
But I found that the men runningthese currency exchanges are
connected to organized crime in Canada such as human
trafficking, drug money laundering with connections to
Pakistan, connections to Iran. And it goes further.
(04:05):
Some of the individuals especially in Toronto that were
behind billions of dollars of transactions in Canadian banks.
Cameron Ortiz who was with the RCMP was caught selling 5
icelands to Iranian businessmen in Toronto that were later
flagged in FBI proliferation investigations or flagged in
(04:29):
moving multi millions of dollarsworth of oil around the world
for Iran. And again, that points to
evading U.S. government sanctions are moving oil into
countries such as China from Iran and using Toronto
businessmen. That is helpful for researchers
trying to figure this out. I've also had people complain
(04:49):
that a lot of vape shops that have been popping up in the US
are also Hezbollah fronts. Have you heard anything about
what Iran is doing and Hezbollahor any other tributaries are
doing in the US or South CentralAmerica?
Absolutely. You know, first of all, you teed
up the vape shot and yeah, I'll just tell you your sources would
(05:12):
be right. People running vape shops and
purportedly legitimate health chemical company businesses.
I later connected to major fentanyl super lab networks that
combine for example, an Iranian Canadian businessman, the
Sinaloa Cartel and Chinese Communist Party fentanyl
(05:33):
precursor suppliers. So that vape shop sort of
business front is absolutely consistent with what I find in
Canada connected to the highest levels of domestic and
transnational crime in terms of what Hezbollah or or Hamas is
involved in the United States. How I started to learn more in
(05:54):
depth about these Iranian community business networks that
are used in the Middle East terror financing, is that your
DEA Special Operations division since the early 2000s had
incredible investigations going in Latin America, Colombia,
Venezuela, where they were picking up wiretaps of Iranian
(06:15):
Hezbollah actors, IRGC people directly working with the
Colombian cartels and the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel in which
they were moving not only drugs but money laundering massive
amounts through the Western Hemisphere.
And how they did that was by either through car thefts in the
(06:37):
United States and Canada or simply car sales at Iranian
linked outlets. They would ship vehicles
offshore, often up from, let's say the Detroit area up through
the Montreal port and then over to Dubai.
So this was a major money laundering operation where
vehicles from the Western Hemisphere are moved over for a
(06:59):
markup over to Africa in the Middle East.
And it was a Hezbollah business affairs component, which is a
fancy name for Iran using organized crime connected with
Latin cartels, traffic trucks and launder money worldwide.
And I've been on this for years talking to people from the DA
and they were very concerned that what they called wiretap
(07:23):
showing command and control in Canadian cities where we have
these very large Iranian diasporas.
They were seeing significant call traffic from Latin America
and Iranian figures in United States up to Toronto, Vancouver,
Windsor, Halifax, where the DA determined Hezbollah was very
(07:43):
strongly running these operations.
And the real concern for me as aCanadian, I showed and proved
that our Canadian federal policewere not cooperative with
American investigators in looking into the Canadian
leadership side of these networks.
Since people are running fentanyl are also helping front
vape shops, is there a risk thatfentanyl is mixing in with the
(08:06):
vape products? What I know from Canadian
investigations is absolutely hardcore chemicals are found in,
for example, marijuana products that are cultivated in
Vancouver. And again, this involves the
Chinese triads, the Iranian datelinked to businessmen and
(08:27):
organized crime figures and the Mexican cartels.
So they're running illegal weed businesses in Canada.
I have the police investigationsthat show everything from PCPS
that's found in the Canadian weeds.
And I've heard from American sources, it's known that
fentanyl or other hardcore drugscoming from China are found in
(08:50):
these softer products. Have I heard exactly of those
fentanyl being found in vape products?
I don't have that exactly. But I do know that the marijuana
business fronts are directly tied to these vape business
fronts are directly tied to fentanyl operations.
So it wouldn't surprise me and it would concern me that that
(09:11):
spillover could happen again into a softer product.
It'd be interesting to take a lab and do a blind sample of
different vaping shops to see ifthere are traces of PCP or and
all in them. It wouldn't surprise me at all
because these super labs in Canada are tied to all kinds of
different narcotics, including the notorious one that's the
(09:33):
subject now of President Donald Trump's tariffs found in a
mountainous area, British Columbia.
They had marijuana, they had cocaine, they had MDMA, they had
methamphetamine, and they had industrial loads of fentanyl and
fentanyl precursors and sophisticated lab equipment.
But remember, these are government scientists running
(09:56):
these labs. So what amount of cross
pollination, if you want to callit, between all those toxins
could occur if they had any vapepens in there?
I wouldn't be surprised if leakage was happening that way
intentionally or unintentionally.
Well I guess it just depends on cost savings if they could do a
tobacco style product that vapesfor cheaper than tobacco.
(10:17):
To your point, my theme of Canada being used as a cartel
and triad hub, I've talked to investigators connected with the
major tobacco worldwide and theyare extremely concerned that for
example, on First Nations lands in Canada, Mexican cartel
operations have set up massive counterfeit tobacco factories to
(10:40):
the point where Mexico, their government is complaining
something like 12% of their tobacco supply is coming from
illegal counterfeit tobacco produced in Canada.
The cartels are using Canada egregiously and these people are
only concerned with profit. They would put anything in those
(11:00):
counterfeit cigarettes to hook people and they're not
government regulated. You've often talked about how
there's been a struggle with lawenforcement between the US,
Canada cooperating to spot and counter criminality, narcotics,
Rico style operations that are going on with criminal actors
(11:21):
and nations that criminality to achieve foreign policy goals.
Do you see that as a basis from which they started to protect
citizens and then it's been misconstrued, or do you see it
as a softening of laws as a result of influence from
powerful elite within these organizations?
(11:42):
That's the question that really does keep me up at night.
And so the issue with Canada is our legal systems are quite
similar between Canada and the United States in many ways.
But Canada has this Charter of Rights, which came up under our
famous Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau from decades ago.
And it's a document that gives citizens the protection against
(12:05):
unreasonable overreach of government into their lives,
which in itself sounds good. But how it's worked out is over
the decades, as transnational crime has grown in power and
lethality, they've recognized that Canada has this chart of
rights, which makes it very difficult for the government to
put wiretaps on citizens. And that includes any citizens.
(12:29):
So if you're a person that got adowngraded visa requirement from
Justin Trudeau, he gave that to Mexico a couple of years ago,
you can just see how that's another factor where people from
other states that are very saturated with organized crime
can come to Canada, establish some residency or citizenship
(12:50):
and they get those protections for good honest tax paying
citizens. And how it's worked out is that
we have a government reporting that says it's extremely
difficult to get a wiretap on a known Sinaloa cartel operative
in Canada. It's just ridiculous to the
point where other sort of barriers in the Charter rights
(13:10):
system make it hard for our Canadian police to receive
intelligence from US agencies and enforcement that might know
about a cartel triad and Iraniantriumvirate super lab for
fentanyl in the Vancouver area. And yet Canada can't act on
that. U.S. government shared
intelligence because they stayed.
(13:32):
They would have to disclose where it came from.
And that can include, as you know, sensitive sources and
methods. And so in a nutshell, the
weakness in Canada, as I've heard from many credible
government officials in in the United States, Canada has
archaic, out of date laws that aren't up to combating these
(13:53):
refill modern transnational crime networks.
And transnational crime is very corporate, very sophisticated.
In Mexico, they're almost like anon state state actor.
They're involved in intelligencewith Iran and China.
I'm told that they can facilitate operations for those
massive hostile states. And so they have found that
(14:18):
operating in Canada, it's like amining company choosing between
a couple of different jurisdictions.
They'll choose the one where they can do business in a more
frictionless way, and ironically, that involves
unrestricted warfare for China because that's how they're using
Canada. But let me not forget your
second question. Yeah, at this point, Look, I
(14:40):
wrote a book in 2021 advocating that Canada needs to update its
laws. For example, we don't even have
a racketeering law that would allow law enforcement to sort of
work around the Charter where it's reasonable and go after
these organized mafias that cross borders.
And no one in government has really responded to mine or
(15:01):
other experts recommendations that we update laws.
So you do have to start asking the question at the end of the
day. Canadian leaders are spotted in
meetings with these high level Iranian Chinese operatives.
It's concerning. Canadian banks have been
implicated in money laundering for fentanyl.
(15:21):
The TD Bank case in Toronto bledinto New York where Chinese
money launderers in Canada were running operations through a
Canadian bank that laundered money through Chinese networks
in the tri-state area. So my point here is that, yeah,
I have a concern that Canadian officials aren't responding to
the weakness in our legal systembecause they have political
(15:45):
exposure. There are a growing number of
experts in Canada that are acknowledging that we have a
problem, our laws are archaic and outdated, and we are being
overrun by these threat networks.
For example, Mark Carney, when he travelled to Mexico for a
bilateral meeting, he was asked by, I believe a Canadian
(16:06):
reporter, would he acknowledge that Mexican cartels are
operating on Canadian soil, and he did say yes, they are.
And similarly, Canadian crime troops are operating in Mexico.
One interesting ally that might be out there are commercial
partners, because China and these other criminal groups from
Iran, they're famous for coming in through businesses and then
(16:31):
replacing them with their own infrastructure.
And I know a lot of commercial partners would be concerned
about it, especially if they're trying to obey the law, not
break the law and run an honest community business or
corporation within Canada. So have you seen a lot of growth
of support and concern from the commercial industry because they
(16:53):
have a lot of say in how politics run?
Absolutely, there are very patriotic people in Canadian
financial institutions, in Canadian industries, in some
areas of Canadian law and academia.
But on the financial side, again, I've been asked to come
out and speak to panels of investment professionals that
(17:15):
are running money for large investors and they want to be
aware of reputational risks or not falling for one of these
foreign influence or cartel networks that as you know are
very good at infiltrating corporate and financial
structures. So I've definitely had people of
great integrity in Canadian and U.S. business networks reach out
(17:37):
to me for official and off the record advice.
So you're right, there are people that realize just for
their own businesses reputation or staying on the right side of
the law, but for the the continuity of our countries,
they need to learn more about where the vulnerabilities are.
Right. Well, it creates instability in
(17:57):
the market. And so even if a company isn't
that integral or even that patriotic, knowing that having a
criminal force, using coercion to upset the market into their
favor will cause commercial entities to support protecting
the market from that because they know they'll be out.
Somebody else will take it over as a criminal network or as a
(18:18):
mob, and they're done. So I would imagine that showing
the risk of displacement or lossor even monopolies by criminal
organizations pushing out Canadian firms would be a rally
point. Absolutely.
That's a great point. And, you know, the Rico or
racketeering laws emanated when the US government recognized
(18:40):
that Italian organized crime waspushing legitimate businesses
and pushing legitimate governments, you know, out of
business, right? They were taken over.
And so the American government came down with the right
solution. And that's what I'm trying to
get the average business person up to the Canadian government to
realize. That's what's needed in Canada.
(19:03):
Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like
and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast
platform. Also, if you're interested in
coming on the show or hosting anepisode, e-mail us at
ca.podcasting@gmail.com. I'll have the e-mail and CA
Association website in the show notes.
And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the
(19:24):
field, working with a partner nation's people or leadership to
forward US relations, thank you all for what you're doing.
This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great
episodes one CA podcast.
Welcome to the ONE CA podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines.
ONE CA is a product of the CivilAffairs Association and brings
in people who are current or former military diplomats,
development officers, and field agents to discuss their
experiences on ground with a partner nation's people and
leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone
interested in working the last three feet of Foreign Relations.
(00:24):
To contact the show, e-mail us at ca.podcasting@gmail.com or
look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at
www.civilaffairsassos.org. I'll have those in the show
notes. Today we welcome back Sam
Cooper, an investigative journalist and founder of The
Bureau News Outlet. Sam has written and reported on
(00:45):
Iran's use of criminality and proxies to raise money and
conduct global influence, and now we sit down to discuss his
findings. My work started kind of from the
bottom side in Canada, just looking straight into criminal
networks which were linked to the Middle East and I discovered
were majorly involved in car thefts in Canada and then
(01:07):
sending cars off to Dubai. That was impacting Canadian
society, but it wasn't understood how that linked into
financing wars in the Middle East or terror attacks.
And so looking into Middle Eastern and diaspora networks
from very influential and proportionately large in Canada,
(01:28):
you've got these large communities that have largely
come from Iran and across the Middle East, very influential in
business. But I learned that some very
sophisticated businessmen were linked not only to organize
crime. So we're talking about human
trafficking, you know, money laundering, narcotics, weapons,
(01:49):
but tied to the Iranian guards, which is that high level proof
of men that controls everything from politics to business to
crime. And whenever Iran comes up
against state sanctions, whetherit's to deal with their use of
the financial system or nuclear proliferation, they then go to
that playbook of using their underground operators worldwide,
(02:13):
especially in Canadian cities, to move funds.
And those funds are flowing backto Iran and back to Hamas, back
to Hezbollah. So, in other words, funding wars
in the Middle East. So what are some indicators that
helped you find these diaspora members that were supporting
Iran? It's a great question.
(02:33):
In Canada, my leadership in world journalism has been
discovering how underground banking links to large diaspora
communities, starting with Chinaand then Iran, is involved in
purportedly legitimate movement of funds from China into Canada
or from Iran into Canada. But in my view, almost always
(02:57):
criminal because people are getting around capital controls
or sanctions. They're using what's called
community bankers who really areaccessing pools of drug cash.
So it's called hawala in the Middle Eastern terminology, the
Vancouver model. As I exposed in Canada, I, for
example, got leaked British Columbia government casino
(03:19):
records on the China side that pointed to these wealthy
businessmen from China connecting with gang loan sharks
in Vancouver and getting massiveamounts of cash and walking into
government casinos. So this was part of that
underground banking world in China.
Similarly, in Iran, there's a massive amount of currency
(03:41):
exchanges in Vancouver, Toronto,Montreal, storefront currency
exchanges and purportedly legal operations.
But I found that the men runningthese currency exchanges are
connected to organized crime in Canada such as human
trafficking, drug money laundering with connections to
Pakistan, connections to Iran. And it goes further.
(04:05):
Some of the individuals especially in Toronto that were
behind billions of dollars of transactions in Canadian banks.
Cameron Ortiz who was with the RCMP was caught selling 5
icelands to Iranian businessmen in Toronto that were later
flagged in FBI proliferation investigations or flagged in
(04:29):
moving multi millions of dollarsworth of oil around the world
for Iran. And again, that points to
evading U.S. government sanctions are moving oil into
countries such as China from Iran and using Toronto
businessmen. That is helpful for researchers
trying to figure this out. I've also had people complain
(04:49):
that a lot of vape shops that have been popping up in the US
are also Hezbollah fronts. Have you heard anything about
what Iran is doing and Hezbollahor any other tributaries are
doing in the US or South CentralAmerica?
Absolutely. You know, first of all, you teed
up the vape shot and yeah, I'll just tell you your sources would
(05:12):
be right. People running vape shops and
purportedly legitimate health chemical company businesses.
I later connected to major fentanyl super lab networks that
combine for example, an Iranian Canadian businessman, the
Sinaloa Cartel and Chinese Communist Party fentanyl
(05:33):
precursor suppliers. So that vape shop sort of
business front is absolutely consistent with what I find in
Canada connected to the highest levels of domestic and
transnational crime in terms of what Hezbollah or or Hamas is
involved in the United States. How I started to learn more in
(05:54):
depth about these Iranian community business networks that
are used in the Middle East terror financing, is that your
DEA Special Operations division since the early 2000s had
incredible investigations going in Latin America, Colombia,
Venezuela, where they were picking up wiretaps of Iranian
(06:15):
Hezbollah actors, IRGC people directly working with the
Colombian cartels and the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel in which
they were moving not only drugs but money laundering massive
amounts through the Western Hemisphere.
And how they did that was by either through car thefts in the
(06:37):
United States and Canada or simply car sales at Iranian
linked outlets. They would ship vehicles
offshore, often up from, let's say the Detroit area up through
the Montreal port and then over to Dubai.
So this was a major money laundering operation where
vehicles from the Western Hemisphere are moved over for a
(06:59):
markup over to Africa in the Middle East.
And it was a Hezbollah business affairs component, which is a
fancy name for Iran using organized crime connected with
Latin cartels, traffic trucks and launder money worldwide.
And I've been on this for years talking to people from the DA
and they were very concerned that what they called wiretap
(07:23):
showing command and control in Canadian cities where we have
these very large Iranian diasporas.
They were seeing significant call traffic from Latin America
and Iranian figures in United States up to Toronto, Vancouver,
Windsor, Halifax, where the DA determined Hezbollah was very
(07:43):
strongly running these operations.
And the real concern for me as aCanadian, I showed and proved
that our Canadian federal policewere not cooperative with
American investigators in looking into the Canadian
leadership side of these networks.
Since people are running fentanyl are also helping front
vape shops, is there a risk thatfentanyl is mixing in with the
(08:06):
vape products? What I know from Canadian
investigations is absolutely hardcore chemicals are found in,
for example, marijuana products that are cultivated in
Vancouver. And again, this involves the
Chinese triads, the Iranian datelinked to businessmen and
(08:27):
organized crime figures and the Mexican cartels.
So they're running illegal weed businesses in Canada.
I have the police investigationsthat show everything from PCPS
that's found in the Canadian weeds.
And I've heard from American sources, it's known that
fentanyl or other hardcore drugscoming from China are found in
(08:50):
these softer products. Have I heard exactly of those
fentanyl being found in vape products?
I don't have that exactly. But I do know that the marijuana
business fronts are directly tied to these vape business
fronts are directly tied to fentanyl operations.
So it wouldn't surprise me and it would concern me that that
(09:11):
spillover could happen again into a softer product.
It'd be interesting to take a lab and do a blind sample of
different vaping shops to see ifthere are traces of PCP or and
all in them. It wouldn't surprise me at all
because these super labs in Canada are tied to all kinds of
different narcotics, including the notorious one that's the
(09:33):
subject now of President Donald Trump's tariffs found in a
mountainous area, British Columbia.
They had marijuana, they had cocaine, they had MDMA, they had
methamphetamine, and they had industrial loads of fentanyl and
fentanyl precursors and sophisticated lab equipment.
But remember, these are government scientists running
(09:56):
these labs. So what amount of cross
pollination, if you want to callit, between all those toxins
could occur if they had any vapepens in there?
I wouldn't be surprised if leakage was happening that way
intentionally or unintentionally.
Well I guess it just depends on cost savings if they could do a
tobacco style product that vapesfor cheaper than tobacco.
(10:17):
To your point, my theme of Canada being used as a cartel
and triad hub, I've talked to investigators connected with the
major tobacco worldwide and theyare extremely concerned that for
example, on First Nations lands in Canada, Mexican cartel
operations have set up massive counterfeit tobacco factories to
(10:40):
the point where Mexico, their government is complaining
something like 12% of their tobacco supply is coming from
illegal counterfeit tobacco produced in Canada.
The cartels are using Canada egregiously and these people are
only concerned with profit. They would put anything in those
(11:00):
counterfeit cigarettes to hook people and they're not
government regulated. You've often talked about how
there's been a struggle with lawenforcement between the US,
Canada cooperating to spot and counter criminality, narcotics,
Rico style operations that are going on with criminal actors
(11:21):
and nations that criminality to achieve foreign policy goals.
Do you see that as a basis from which they started to protect
citizens and then it's been misconstrued, or do you see it
as a softening of laws as a result of influence from
powerful elite within these organizations?
(11:42):
That's the question that really does keep me up at night.
And so the issue with Canada is our legal systems are quite
similar between Canada and the United States in many ways.
But Canada has this Charter of Rights, which came up under our
famous Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau from decades ago.
And it's a document that gives citizens the protection against
(12:05):
unreasonable overreach of government into their lives,
which in itself sounds good. But how it's worked out is over
the decades, as transnational crime has grown in power and
lethality, they've recognized that Canada has this chart of
rights, which makes it very difficult for the government to
put wiretaps on citizens. And that includes any citizens.
(12:29):
So if you're a person that got adowngraded visa requirement from
Justin Trudeau, he gave that to Mexico a couple of years ago,
you can just see how that's another factor where people from
other states that are very saturated with organized crime
can come to Canada, establish some residency or citizenship
(12:50):
and they get those protections for good honest tax paying
citizens. And how it's worked out is that
we have a government reporting that says it's extremely
difficult to get a wiretap on a known Sinaloa cartel operative
in Canada. It's just ridiculous to the
point where other sort of barriers in the Charter rights
(13:10):
system make it hard for our Canadian police to receive
intelligence from US agencies and enforcement that might know
about a cartel triad and Iraniantriumvirate super lab for
fentanyl in the Vancouver area. And yet Canada can't act on
that. U.S. government shared
intelligence because they stayed.
(13:32):
They would have to disclose where it came from.
And that can include, as you know, sensitive sources and
methods. And so in a nutshell, the
weakness in Canada, as I've heard from many credible
government officials in in the United States, Canada has
archaic, out of date laws that aren't up to combating these
(13:53):
refill modern transnational crime networks.
And transnational crime is very corporate, very sophisticated.
In Mexico, they're almost like anon state state actor.
They're involved in intelligencewith Iran and China.
I'm told that they can facilitate operations for those
massive hostile states. And so they have found that
(14:18):
operating in Canada, it's like amining company choosing between
a couple of different jurisdictions.
They'll choose the one where they can do business in a more
frictionless way, and ironically, that involves
unrestricted warfare for China because that's how they're using
Canada. But let me not forget your
second question. Yeah, at this point, Look, I
(14:40):
wrote a book in 2021 advocating that Canada needs to update its
laws. For example, we don't even have
a racketeering law that would allow law enforcement to sort of
work around the Charter where it's reasonable and go after
these organized mafias that cross borders.
And no one in government has really responded to mine or
(15:01):
other experts recommendations that we update laws.
So you do have to start asking the question at the end of the
day. Canadian leaders are spotted in
meetings with these high level Iranian Chinese operatives.
It's concerning. Canadian banks have been
implicated in money laundering for fentanyl.
(15:21):
The TD Bank case in Toronto bledinto New York where Chinese
money launderers in Canada were running operations through a
Canadian bank that laundered money through Chinese networks
in the tri-state area. So my point here is that, yeah,
I have a concern that Canadian officials aren't responding to
the weakness in our legal systembecause they have political
(15:45):
exposure. There are a growing number of
experts in Canada that are acknowledging that we have a
problem, our laws are archaic and outdated, and we are being
overrun by these threat networks.
For example, Mark Carney, when he travelled to Mexico for a
bilateral meeting, he was asked by, I believe a Canadian
(16:06):
reporter, would he acknowledge that Mexican cartels are
operating on Canadian soil, and he did say yes, they are.
And similarly, Canadian crime troops are operating in Mexico.
One interesting ally that might be out there are commercial
partners, because China and these other criminal groups from
Iran, they're famous for coming in through businesses and then
(16:31):
replacing them with their own infrastructure.
And I know a lot of commercial partners would be concerned
about it, especially if they're trying to obey the law, not
break the law and run an honest community business or
corporation within Canada. So have you seen a lot of growth
of support and concern from the commercial industry because they
(16:53):
have a lot of say in how politics run?
Absolutely, there are very patriotic people in Canadian
financial institutions, in Canadian industries, in some
areas of Canadian law and academia.
But on the financial side, again, I've been asked to come
out and speak to panels of investment professionals that
(17:15):
are running money for large investors and they want to be
aware of reputational risks or not falling for one of these
foreign influence or cartel networks that as you know are
very good at infiltrating corporate and financial
structures. So I've definitely had people of
great integrity in Canadian and U.S. business networks reach out
(17:37):
to me for official and off the record advice.
So you're right, there are people that realize just for
their own businesses reputation or staying on the right side of
the law, but for the the continuity of our countries,
they need to learn more about where the vulnerabilities are.
Right. Well, it creates instability in
(17:57):
the market. And so even if a company isn't
that integral or even that patriotic, knowing that having a
criminal force, using coercion to upset the market into their
favor will cause commercial entities to support protecting
the market from that because they know they'll be out.
Somebody else will take it over as a criminal network or as a
(18:18):
mob, and they're done. So I would imagine that showing
the risk of displacement or lossor even monopolies by criminal
organizations pushing out Canadian firms would be a rally
point. Absolutely.
That's a great point. And, you know, the Rico or
racketeering laws emanated when the US government recognized
(18:40):
that Italian organized crime waspushing legitimate businesses
and pushing legitimate governments, you know, out of
business, right? They were taken over.
And so the American government came down with the right
solution. And that's what I'm trying to
get the average business person up to the Canadian government to
realize. That's what's needed in Canada.
(19:03):
Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like
and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast
platform. Also, if you're interested in
coming on the show or hosting anepisode, e-mail us at
ca.podcasting@gmail.com. I'll have the e-mail and CA
Association website in the show notes.
And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the
(19:24):
field, working with a partner nation's people or leadership to
forward US relations, thank you all for what you're doing.
This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great
episodes one CA podcast.
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