Keeping an eye on Communist, Totalitarian China, and its influence both globally, and we as Canadians. I have come to the opinion that we are rarely privy to truth regarding the real goal, the agenda of China, it's ambitions for Canada [including special focus on the UK, US & Australia]. No more can we trust the legacy media as there appears to be increasing censorship applied to the topic of communist China. I ask why. Here is what I find.
WATCH: Explaining the 'Vancouver Model.' How criminal organizations move money and drugs around the world.
Criminal syndicates that control chemical factories in China’s booming Guangdong province are shipping narcotics, including fentanyl, to Vancouver, washing the drug sales in British Columbia’s casinos and high-priced real estate, and transferring laundered funds back to Chinese factories to repeat this deadly trade cycle, a Global News investigation shows.
The Triads have infiltrated Canada’s economy so deeply that Australia’s intelligence community has coined a new term for innovative methods of drug trafficking and money laundering now occurring in B.C.
It is called the “Vancouver Model” of transnational crime.
LISTEN: Investigative reporter Sam Cooper explains the “Vancouver Model’ of transnational crime
Details of the Vancouver Model are outlined in a November 2017 report obtained by Global News from B.C.’s provincial government, in a freedom of information request. The report, by John Langdale of the department of security studies and criminology at Macquarie University, was presented to Australian intelligence officers and Austrac, the country’s anti-money laundering agency.
B.C. Attorney General David Eby has reviewed the report, and recently travelled to Ottawa to inform a federal committee of his concerns. His message was blunt. Eby testified that Canada’s anti-money laundering system has completely failed. He told the committee that gangsters have been openly carrying hockey bags stuffed with hundreds of thousands in drug cash into B.C. casinos, and there has not been a single prosecution.
In an interview with Global, Eby said the Australian report shows “that Vancouver is now recognized internationally as a hub of transnational money laundering.”
“I was stunned,” Eby said, “by the scope and the scale of the transnational crime that is alleged in this presentation. I know that B.C. is in the grips of an opioid crisis that is costing hundreds of millions of dollars. And it is costing hundreds of lives.”
Langdale’s report explains how Chinese criminals exploit “weak links” in global regulation. In one example, Triads deal with the state of North Korea, and Latin American drug cartels, to run a shadow economy based on the trading of narcotics, counterfeit goods, and illegal migrants.
Similarly, the regions of Vancouver, Hong Kong and Macau have formed a black market financed by intricate Chinese underground banking networks. According to the Vancouver Model report, the underground banks are at the heart of Chinese drug trafficking crime.
These secret banks have developed for centuries on China’s southern coast, police intelligence reports say. They consist of family members spread across Chinese communities worldwide. They can move money, drugs and commodities around the world, without having to send funds across national borders. The banks maintain reserves of various currencies at locations worldwide, taking deposits in one area, and paying out withdrawals in another.
In order to function, the underground banks need financial facilitators, and the Triads have used some lawyers, bankers, casino operators, and gambling junket operators in Hong Kong, Macau and Vancouver, Langdale’s report says.
LISTEN: B.C. Attorney General David Eby responds to money laundering concerns
The junket operators are organized crime lenders. Traditionally, the junkets have laundered Asian heroin money and facilitated capital flight from China, by extending loans to Chinese high-rollers to purchase chips in Macau casinos.
The VIPs can cash out chips to buy global real estate. They pay back gambling loans in China, with small interest fees, allowing them to illicitly send legitimate wealth abroad, or launder ill-gotten gains. The junket lenders have migrated from Macau to Vancouver casinos, B.C. government documents show, bringing many VIP gamblers with them.
Langdale says that Australia’s government is worried about Chinese capital flight, because Austrac can’t differentiate between legitimate and criminal money pouring into Australian assets. His report outlines a worst case for Australia: “Possible scenario. Sydney as a regional hub for Chinese transnational crime (the Vancouver Model.)”
The model’s criminal elements, according to the report, are:
“Traffic illegal drugs from Guangdong and Latin America”
“North American illegal drug dealing networks supplied by Chinese methamphetamines and precursor chemicals”
“Launder money into high-end real estate (funded by Chinese) capital flight, and launder money through the high-roller tables in casinos”
“High rollers used Canadian casinos, junket operations, and investment in Canadian real estate”
“Use banks, money transfer businesses to shift money to and from China and other countries (including) Mexico and Columbia.”
WATCH:B.C. Attorney GeneralDavid Eby explains how transnational crime groups target Canada
Extended: How transnational crime groups target Canada
Extended: How transnational crime groups target Canada
The world’s factory
Langdale’s research focuses on the global supply of illegal drugs and crime from Guangdong, a province that faces the South China Sea, and borders China’s special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau.
Guangdong is China’s most populous province, with 100 million citizens, including about 30 million migrant workers, and the most billionaires in China. The province’s economy is powered by the industrial Pearl River Delta region, which includes cities such as Zhuhai and Shenzhen. And with massive shipping infrastructure that connects with major international ports, Guangdong is known as the “world’s factory,” Langdale says.
It is also the world’s factory for chemical opioids.
Guangdong is known as the ‘world’s factory’ Source: Global News
“Guangdong is a good location for production and trafficking of illegal goods and services,” the report says, with its proximity to Hong Kong and Macau, and their “well-established networks of facilitators skilled at shifting money overseas via offshore banking and finance.”
“You have a confluence of a major financial market in Hong Kong beside this seething mass of capitalism,” Langdale said in an interview.
“Guangdong is a very tough world. The whole place is barely regulated. It’s a kaleidoscope of subcontractors that the Chinese government doesn’t have a handle on.”
Command and Control
According to U.S. and Canadian law enforcement, illegal shipments of fentanyl from Chinese factories and fentanyl overdose deaths in North America are multiplying at an exponential rate.
Last October, the U.S. Dept. of Justice announced a major drug-trafficking and money-laundering investigation against two Chinese men, who are alleged to have had “command and control” of numerous chemical factories and labs in southern China, used to ship “massive quantities of deadly fentanyl and other synthetic opioids to communities throughout the United States.”
It was the first time the U.S. labelled Chinese nationals as top priority international crime targets, on a level with Colombian drug cartel kingpins.
In a separate case last December, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported that Chinese police arrested 19 suspects accused of manufacturing fentanyl from Guangdong factories and sending the drugs to North America.
And Canada Border Services Agency documents say seizure amounts of fentanyl from China have surged since three years ago, with 7.2 kilograms seized in 2014, that rising sharply to 58 kilograms in 2015, and 20.5 kilograms seized in the fiscal year of 2016-2017.
WATCH:A new report shows how Canada’s anti-money laundering system has failed
New details on ‘The Vancouver Method’ of gangland money laundering
New details on ‘The Vancouver Method’ of gangland money laundering
Not all Triads are bad
In his 34-year policing career former RCMP superintendent Garry Clement served as director of the Proceeds of Crime program, an undercover investigator, and from 1991 to 1994, as liaison officer for Canada’s Hong Kong embassy.
He is a certified consultant on financial and organized crime, and has been an expert witness in numerous money-laundering trials.
In an interview, Clement said that the allegations laid out in Langdale’s report — specifically, that Triads are producing deadly chemical narcotics in Chinese factories, shipping the drugs to B.C., and laundering proceeds of crime in Vancouver before returning funds to Chinese factory production — are completely accurate.
In fact, Clement investigated and reported on this same criminal blueprint, in 1994. In Canada’s Consulate General in Hong Kong, Clement and an immigration control officer uncovered an alleged Triad immigration fraud that they say allowed the gangs to gain a foothold in B.C.
“Sadly, it’s the truth. The Triads were a multinational crime syndicate back in the ’90s, and we have allowed them to expand, using Canada as a base,” Clement said. “It is phenomenal what the Triads can do.”
To grasp the Vancouver Model of Triad crime, Clement says, some Chinese economic and historical understanding is needed.
In his 1994 report, Triads and other Asia-based Organized Crime, Clement writes that prior to China’s communist revolution, the Triads had deep connections to military and political leaders. A Chinese president himself, Chiang Kai-Shek, was a Triad associate who staffed his army with opium-trading gangsters, Clement’s 1994 report says.
When Chairman Mao and the communists seized control of Mainland China in 1949, many Triads fled to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Hong Kong was substantially built on British opium trading fortunes, Clement’s report says, and provided many business opportunities for the Triads.
Meanwhile, Mao and the communists claimed to have cleansed Mainland China of drug vice. But the Triads were allowed to return. In the 1980s, a new Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, ushered in economic liberalization, with a strong focus on factories and global exports in Guangdong.
Deng’s model of reform tolerated corruption between state officials and business tycoons for the sake of rapid job growth.
According to Clement, famous sayings credited to Deng — such as “it doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice,” and “not all Triads are bad” — explain how crime syndicates gained control in Guangdong.
“When he said that, I knew that it meant that Triads would get to set up factories,” Clement said.
Vancouver Model real estate laundering
After establishing a strong base in Vancouver, Clement says, the Triads forged a criminal trade loop with Triad factories in Guangdong.
Clement’s 1994 report explains how the Triads have used “quasi-legitimate” real estate development, construction, and financial companies to launder drug cash in Vancouver real estate. In one method, Triad companies send drug funds to offshore bank accounts, and use these deposits to secure mortgages for purchasing and developing B.C. land.
Another method involves falsified contracts used to make drug cash appear to be legitimate real estate wealth. The buyers pay artificially high prices for property, recording transactions in B.C.’s land title system. But a much lower actual price is paid to a Triad-linked seller, in an offshore bank account transaction.
Clement says these offshore transactions have likely had the effect of artificially inflating prices across Metro Vancouver housing markets, and leaving swaths of empty homes.
“What we see in Vancouver real estate is heartbreaking,” Clement said. “I saw the same thing in Panama, with the empty homes.”
Guangdong-Hong Kong-Vancouver-Sydney
Langdale’s report says that transnational criminals in Mainland China and Hong Kong play different roles in the Vancouver Model. The Guangdong Triads specialize in large-scale production of chemical narcotics, as well as counterfeit products. They are also involved in wildlife smuggling and human trafficking.
The Hong Kong Triads specialize in financing drug shipments, as lenders and insurers. They are involved in loan sharking, stock market manipulation, and criminal money laundering services. These Triads show some of the same characteristics as suspects named in B.C. Lottery Corp. investigation documents.
The Hong Kong syndicates also re-route shipments of counterfeit products from North Korea, such as tobacco, Langdale’s report says. CBSA documents say that counterfeit tobacco from Chinese and Hong Kong ports often ends up in B.C.
A review of B.C. government documents obtained by Global News shows that a Chinese man linked to Vancouver casino junket lenders was cited in a major tobacco trafficking investigation.
The man, who is allegedly involved in criminal real estate lending networks in Vancouver, has defaulted on $196,000 in payment of “taxes, penalty or interest,” under the Tobacco Tax Act, a 2010 B.C. Supreme Court filing says.
Meanwhile, some of the Chinese VIP gamblers identified in B.C. Lottery Corp. documents obtained by Global News, are alleged to be involved in B.C. wildlife trafficking cases. B.C.’s Ministry of Environment would not disclose documents about these cases, citing potential harm to police investigations.
The Mainland China Triads also have the ability to trade illegal migrants around the world, Langdale says. CBSA documents obtained by Global point to a case of forged documents that likely is connected to Triad schemes, Clement said.
The documents say that in April 2016, border agents at a Montreal airport seized about 5,600 counterfeit foil holograms from China, designed to authenticate Quebec health insurance cards. This case concerns the CBSA, an intelligence brief says, because the forgeries could facilitate immigration frauds that threaten Canada’s national security.
In an interview, Langdale said that in the Vancouver Model, Triad crime money will ultimately flow back into Chinese factories that produce deadly narcotics, and the export cycle will continue. But the Triad money will also taint economies worldwide.
“The recycling (of dirty cash) may take place in Australia, Vancouver, Hong Kong’s offshore money market, or Shenzhen, depending on where they see the greatest opportunities for their money,” Langdale said. “It could also go into legal enterprises. Overall, the economy becomes totally corrupted by a web of licit and illicit activities.”
Fintrac loopholes
Kim Marsh, a former international organized crime unit commander for the RCMP, now consults with international governments in efforts to detect corrupt officials and criminals seeking money laundering havens.
Marsh says that he agrees with Attorney General Eby’s conclusion, that Canada’s anti-money laundering system has failed.
“Is this the message we want to send to the world?” Marsh said, “That Vancouver is the place to launder dirty money in real estate, and this is forcing our young people to move away.”
Fintrac, as Garry Clement puts it, is a “Rolls Royce, without an engine.” He means that Fintrac’s reporting requirements are stringent, but reports rarely lead to investigations and enforcement.
The system requires that Canada’s financial professionals, including bankers, casino operators, realtors and currency exchange owners, report suspicious or large cash transactions. Fintrac receives extensive reports from casino operators and banks, especially.
However, Eby says that in the casino industry, ample reporting only means that operators can claim they have fulfilled their regulatory obligations. And meanwhile, he said, VIPs have the green-light to wheel suitcases stuffed with $20 bills into high-limit betting rooms.
A major problem, Marsh says, is that Canadian privacy laws block police investigators from working with Fintrac agents, and accessing Fintrac’s valuable cache of evidence.
Another problem, is Canada’s gaping lawyer loophole.
A 2016 report from Transparency International said that almost 50 per cent of Vancouver’s most expensive properties are owned through legal mechanisms, such as trusts and shell companies, which are used to hide true ownership.
Canadian lawyers won an exemption from Fintrac reporting in a 2015 Supreme Court ruling.
In 2016 the Financial Action Task Force, a partnership among international governments, recommended that Canada amend Fintrac laws to bring lawyers into the system. The task force reported that money laundering in Vancouver real estate is linked to trust account services provided by some lawyers.
“It is unethical professionals that are benefiting, and global criminals,” Marsh said. “The legal loophole is big, and unique to Canada.”
Ex-UN official from Montreal nabbed by FBI for alleged role selling Chinese weapons to Libya
January 27, 2025
The FBI has arrested and charged a former top UN agency executive from Montreal for allegedly attempting to broker more than $1 billion worth of illicit arms deals between China and Libya, Global News has learned.
“James” Kuang Chi Wan, who was a deputy director at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), was apprehended by the FBI after he stepped off a flight from Taiwan that landed at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Jan. 21, 2023, FBI documents show.
.....the happy fellow on the left
Wan, 62, allegedly spearheaded a scheme to help the People’s Republic of China (PRC) sell $1.54 billion of drones, missiles and even shoulder-fired missiles to armed militants in Libya between 2019 and 2023, according to an FBI search and arrest warrant and criminal complaint attached as an exhibit.
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Wan, whose principal residence is in Montreal, with breaching the U.S. Arms Export Control Act after the FBI uncovered evidence suggesting he allegedly benefited financially from the scheme.
The FBI’s criminal complaint against Wan alleges that he and six co-conspirators, including one Canadian, were involved in the multinational operation. The six others were not named.
Wan said one participant was “a special advisor to Chinese President Xi Jinping,” according to the FBI documents.
The criminal complaint filed against Wan in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York two years ago remains sealed from the public.
Global News obtained a copy of it from an unsealed search warrant file.
The FBI investigator leading the probe, counterintelligence special agent Gary Phillips, alleged that between 2019 and late 2022, Wan engaged in developing illicit arms and oil deals between the PRC, Libyan warlords and other officials in several Middle Eastern and North African countries.
His activities were allegedly in violation of UN-imposed international arms embargoes and trade sanctions against Libya and others, the FBI documents contend.
The FBI records, along with unsealed RCMP sworn affidavits from a related probe in Quebec, highlight how the People’s Republic of China allegedly used Canada and the halls of a UN agency to stage clandestine foreign interference operations.
None of the evidence cited in the FBI complaint and RCMP affidavits has been tested in a public court setting.
Since the FBI took Wan into custody and seized his phone, laptop and storage devices, his fate before U.S. courts remains unclear.
Wan could not be reached for comment. The FBI didn’t return phone messages.
The RCMP would not comment on Wan’s status.
“He is not accused by the RCMP, and the information you are seeking is related to the FBI investigation. Therefore, we cannot provide any information,” an RCMP spokesperson said.
Wan’s wife, Ning Lu, declined to accept a letter from Global News through an intermediary seeking comment from her on her husband’s situation. The intermediary, who lives in Montreal, said, “She thinks your article does not help her family. So less stress is better for her.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice’s International Law Enforcement division declined to comment on Wan’s FBI airport encounter or current legal status.
In the U.S., persons who breach arms export control laws may get up to 20 years in jail and a $1-million fine. In Canada, the maximum is 10 years in jail and a $100,000 fine.
How the plot allegedly began
Arriving in Canada in 2009 from Austria as a second-time newlywed, Wan was hired at the International Civil Aviation Organization headquarters in Montreal in its administration bureau.
ICAO is the UN agency that co-ordinates global commercial aviation matters, including policies, safety regulations and standards, and training for its 150 member nations.
The International Civil Aviation Organization headquarters near Old Montreal. Canadian Press
The alleged conspiracy involving Wan, other ICAO workers and Chinese government officials began in December 2018, the FBI complaint states.
That’s when an ICAO colleague, Mahmoud Mohamed Sayeh, allegedly approached Wan to act as an intermediary between China and the militant armed Libyan group led by warlord Khalifa Haftar, according to the FBI criminal complaint and unsealed RCMP affidavits.
The RCMP says it issued an international arrest warrant for Mahmud Mohamed Elsuwaye Sayeh. He is facing conspiracy charges, laid in 2024, for allegedly illegal activities committed while he worked at the International Civil Aviation Organization, a UN agency in Montreal. RCMP
Sayeh, a Libyan, allegedly said he needed Wan’s close ties to China to help complete deals with the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, the leading national aerospace state enterprise. (Wan studied aviation in China.)
Both agreed to supply Libyan militants with powerful military drones, weapons and computer systems to operate them so the armed group could more rapidly win a civil war, the FBI complaint alleged.
The Chinese hoped to do that “without attracting attention from the international community,” the RCMP affidavit adds.
In exchange, the People’s Republic of China secured a pro sports team-like trade for future considerations: favourable business opportunities in a peaceful and prosperous post-war Libya under the new regime it backed, the FBI complaint and RCMP affidavits allege.
Documents allege that under the arrangement, Chinese diplomats and state-owned aerospace executives agreed to “look the other way” about the weapons buyers as Wan and Sayeh steered contracts through front companies outside Libya.
One of those alleged front companies was registered in the United Kingdom and identified by both the FBI and RCMP as Shanghai Gold-Wing Aviation Technology Co. Ltd. The U.K. corporate registry dissolved the company in late October 2024.
Wan’s work negotiating drone deals included extensive private communications, meetings and discussions with senior Chinese diplomats and state aerospace executives, the FBI alleged.
“Wan seems to have direct communication channels with Chinese government representatives,” RCMP Cpl. Gabriel Lemaire, a national security investigator in Montreal, added in his sworn affidavit after reviewing the FBI-seized materials.
It is alleged that in an initial round of 2019 talks, Wan and his alleged associates structured a deal via “a point of contact” company called China Raybo International. Wan said Raybo “owned by the family of PRC President Xi Jinping,” an RCMP affidavit states, echoing FBI mentions of a possible connection to China’s top leader.
‘James’ Kuang Chi Wan is seen here (left) with five other men allegedly involved in developing unlawful arms deals between China and a militant group in Libya, using front companies, in this 2019 photo obtained by the FBI. FBI criminal complaint / 2023
One deal that was allegedly discussed included 12 large Chinese Wing Loong II drones and 30 mid-sized aircraft, some of them equipped with up to a dozen air-to-ground missiles and rocket attack weapons, the RCMP and FBI affidavits state.
The deals allegedly included Chinese military Wing Loong drones as shown here in a photo included in the FBI criminal complaint.
The People’s Republic of China Embassy in Ottawa denied the FBI and RCMP allegations that China and its state aerospace enterprises tacitly supported illegal arms deals in Libya.
“We oppose any words and deeds that spread disinformation and distort and smear China,” the embassy statement read. It refused to answer specific questions.
Police: PRC officials became skittish
In 2020, Chinese government officials stipulated that the deal should instead go through the government aerospace business, the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, and one of its affiliates, court documents state.
The FBI and RCMP documents state that Chinese officials were nervous about the state enterprise’s direct involvement in Libya, as they were sensitive to the UN’s arms embargo.
According to the FBI complaint, at one of several overseas meetings, Wan was photographed on April 1, 2019, with a member of Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar’s group.
Libyan militant commander Khalifa Haftar (left) meets Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2019. Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS
The FBI and RCMP allege that Chinese officials and Wan’s co-conspirators eventually opted for deals through front companies in China, Egypt and the U.K. Sayeh registered a company in Egypt and became its president in 2020, RCMP affidavits state.
That same month, Sayeh — who was still employed by ICAO — requested a meeting with China’s ambassador to Egypt and Maj.-Gen. Aoun Al-Ferjani, the right-hand man to Haftar, the RCMP affidavit states.
The FBI complaint states that by May 4, 2021, the co-conspirators had held a video conference call to discuss how they and their front companies would divide the large financial rewards they hoped to generate after flouting the international arms embargo.
The FBI said the alleged weapons deals included discussions about CM502KG short air-to-surface missiles, like the one shown here in FBI documents. FBI
FBI investigators seized notes recorded by one unidentified co-conspirator on that conference call. Those notes suggest Wan, his co-conspirators and their companies would share a US$190-million commission, according to the FBI.
New home purchased
The FBI said Wan’s alleged arms-dealing activities were not part of his ICAO duties, suggesting the alleged activities could have been an illegal side hustle conducted for a time under cover of diplomatic immunity.
Later, on Nov. 1, 2021, Wan upgraded his Quebec residence, real estate records show.
He and his wife bought a sprawling four-bedroom, $2.45-million stone home in suburban Brossard, featuring a double garage and a saltwater inground pool, property records show, after selling their 18th-floor condo apartment on Nun’s Island for $888,000.
However, weeks later, Wan’s life began to unravel.
On Dec. 8, 2021, the ICAO fired Wan for serious misconduct. An internal investigation concluded he engaged in several conflicts of interest related to the awarding of ICAO contracts not linked to his weapons deals. Wan appealed but later lost before a UN tribunal.
Soon afterwards, the FBI and RCMP were at his heels.
Travelling between the U.S. and Canada, border authorities on both sides stopped and searched him twice, police documents show.
At one stop in 2022, a U.S. officer allegedly asked Wan why he travelled to Libya.
Wan replied the purpose of his trip was to discuss an “auto retractable syringe” project with a medical equipment company, the FBI stated.
Investigators on both sides of the border began reading and seizing his Gmail and Yahoo email accounts, phone and banking records, FBI and RCMP sworn affidavits state.
In a November 2022, the FBI obtained one Wan email in which he allegedly told a Canadian acquaintance that he would resettle his family in China in May or June of 2023. The FBI moved to arrest Wan not long after that when he returned from an extended overseas trip.
Wan benefited from deals: FBI
FBI and RCMP national security investigators don’t say in any documents if the ICAO workers’ alleged drone deals with China and Libya were completed or whether they were in progress and disrupted when the FBI arrested Wan in January 2023 and the RCMP arrested another suspect in 2024.
Yet, according to the FBI’s 2023 complaint against Wan, FBI investigators alleged they “uncovered evidence that Wan has benefited financially from the scheme.”
“At least one financial institution has recently questioned Wan about his unexplained wealth,” the FBI complaint alleges.
In July 2022, the FBI says, an unidentified financial planner from an unnamed Canadian financial institution contacted Wan to discuss “the significant amount deposited into your account.”
“It is a question of safety. . . ,” the FBI quoted the Canadian as saying. The banker also suggested Wan’s cash could also earn better returns, the FBI added.
(The FBI complaint did not disclose the amount said to have been deposited or the source of those funds. Global News learned that Wan sold a New York City residence he also owned on June 30, 2022, generating US$1.38 million in gross proceeds.)
The complaint also alleges that Wan became concerned that he was being monitored.
In November 2022, according to the FBI, Wan told one person in an email he was removing them and all his close personal friends as connections on the Chinese WeChat messaging service “for now . . .to protect you in case any government is watching…trust me on what I am doing is to protect you.”
ICAO thumb drives seized
He also removed an unidentified romantic partner from WeChat, the FBI complaint adds.
During the FBI’s search of Wan’s person and bags in January 2023, investigators seized his personal computer, external hard drive, Huawei mobile phone and two thumb drives bearing ICAO logos, documents show.
The FBI did not disclose what investigators found on those ICAO drives after police computer forensic specialists searched them.
The bureau also attempted to seize all messages that Wan exchanged with his alleged co-conspirators on WeChat, including Sayeh and others, its search warrant shows.
In September 2023, Wan’s Brossard home was listed for sale, asking $2.8 million.
It went unsold, an expired listing shows, and it’s currently rented.
In April 2024, the RCMP in Quebec charged Wan’s alleged co-conspirator Mahmud Sayeh, 37, with participating in illicit arms and oil deals with sanctioned countries.
Sayeh did not respond to requests for comment. He has vanished from Montreal, RCMP say.
Arrest warrant issued
The RCMP has issued an arrest warrant for him in Canada, and an Interpol red notice that requires police in other countries to arrest and detain him for Canadian authorities.
Even now, two years after Wan’s FBI apprehension, the Mounties will not say if any of Wan’s alleged Chinese-Libya drone deals were ever completed.
However, police sources pointed to an Italian customs interception and seizure this July of China-made Wing Loong military drones, saying it proves China’s alleged scheme was real, and that subterfuge was being used to ship the military drones to Libya.
Italy’s Guardia di Finanza said its officers seized pieces for two Chinese military drones — they were hidden inside shipping containers and disguised as wind turbines — while they were en route to Libya.
Italian media were allowed to photograph the aircraft components for the public to see.
The seized drones were the same kind of military drones China allegedly discussed with Wan and Sayeh, and which were displayed in their presentations allegedly seized by the FBI.