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.
Wan’s arrest is the latest in a growing list of FBI cases that highlight alleged misdeeds by People’s Republic of China agents or intermediaries that are landing before U.S. criminal courts, including political interference in the New York governor’s office, a spy inside telecom giant Verizon and secret Chinese Communist Party police stations in New York City.
Wan's fate unknown
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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