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.
Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Canada’s Next National Security Battle Will Be Fought Through Money, Not Missiles
Canada’s Next National Security Battle Will Be Fought Through Money, Not Missiles
This is economic warfare conducted through financial systems: RCMP financial crimes and counter-narco veteran
Canadians have traditionally viewed national security through the familiar lens of spies, cyberattacks, military threats and terrorism. We imagine foreign adversaries stealing secrets, infiltrating government institutions or launching sophisticated cyber campaigns against critical infrastructure.
Those threats are real.
But they are no longer the primary battlefield.
The next generation of conflict is being fought through illicit finance.
Across Canada, transnational organized crime, hostile foreign states, underground banking networks, professional money launderers and economic influence operations increasingly rely upon the same financial infrastructure to move wealth, acquire strategic assets, evade sanctions, corrupt institutions and expand geopolitical influence.
This is not simply organized crime.
Nor is it merely foreign interference.
It is economic warfare conducted through financial systems.
For years I have argued that Canada has underestimated the convergence of organized crime and national security. The evidence is now overwhelming. The challenge is no longer whether these threats are connected, but whether our institutions are prepared to respond to them as a single strategic problem.
The recent testimony of veteran U.S. financial crime investigator John Cassara before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee should serve as required reading for every Canadian policymaker. His testimony does not simply examine Chinese money laundering networks; it explains the operating system that increasingly underpins global illicit finance.
His warning is clear: governments continue to fight financial crime as though money laundering were merely a banking compliance issue, while sophisticated criminal enterprises have transformed illicit finance into an instrument of geopolitical competition.
Canada cannot afford to ignore that warning.
The Cullen Commission exposed how British Columbia became vulnerable to money laundering through casinos, luxury vehicles, real estate, opaque corporate structures and underground banking. It confirmed what investigators had warned for years: illicit money had become deeply embedded in Canada’s economy.
Yet the Commission was necessarily provincial in focus.
Cassara places those same vulnerabilities into a much broader strategic framework.
What occurred in British Columbia was never simply a provincial policing problem, but one node within a sophisticated global financial ecosystem linking organized crime, illicit trade, underground banking, professional facilitators, foreign influence operations and state interests.
Canada has spent years studying the symptoms; we have devoted far less attention to understanding the system itself.
Perhaps the most important lesson from Cassara’s testimony is that modern money laundering is no longer primarily about moving money.
It is about moving value.
Traditional anti-money laundering systems were built to identify suspicious bank transfers.
Today’s criminal enterprises increasingly bypass those systems altogether: trade invoices replace wire transfers, underground banking replaces conventional remittance systems, mirror swaps settle transactions without funds crossing borders, cryptocurrency accelerates settlement across jurisdictions, commercial imports and exports disguise criminal proceeds, and real estate preserves illicit wealth.
In many cases, the dirty money never actually leaves the country where it was generated.
Equivalent value simply appears somewhere else.
The transaction disappears into legitimate commerce.
Our laws continue to follow money. Modern criminal enterprises follow value.
Canada possesses many strengths: a stable democracy, respected financial institutions, predictable courts and a trusted economy.
Ironically, those strengths have become strategic vulnerabilities.
Canada offers access to global capital markets, valuable real estate, sophisticated financial services and extensive international trade connections.
Whether the actors originate in China, Iran, Russia, India or Latin America matters less than the methods they employ.
Chinese underground banking networks, trade-based money laundering, professional laundering organizations, nominee ownership, cryptocurrency, trade fraud, shell companies, strategic land acquisitions and foreign influence operations are no longer isolated activities. They are interconnected components of an integrated financial ecosystem that enables organized crime, sanctions evasion, fentanyl trafficking, corruption, foreign interference and, increasingly, national security threats.
This is not theoretical.
Canadian investigations and public inquiries have documented Chinese underground banking networks operating alongside international drug trafficking organizations.
The Cullen Commission exposed laundering through casinos and real estate.
The Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference highlighted efforts by foreign states to influence Canadian institutions and democratic processes.
Law enforcement has documented relationships among organized crime groups, including Chinese Triads, outlaw motorcycle gangs, Iranian money laundering networks and transnational criminal organizations that increasingly share logistics, financial facilitators and underground banking systems.
The recent British Columbia civil forfeiture proceedings involving alleged international drug trafficking, nominee ownership structures and suspected proceeds invested in Canadian real estate are another reminder that Canada has become an attractive operating environment for sophisticated criminal enterprises. The allegations remain before the courts, but the broader pattern is familiar.
These are not separate challenges requiring separate strategies.
They are different expressions of the same financial ecosystem.
Our adversaries operate as integrated enterprises.
Yet sophisticated criminal organizations deliberately exploit the spaces between them.
Money laundering is treated as a banking issue, trade fraud as a customs issue, foreign interference as an intelligence issue and tax evasion as a CRA issue. No single agency is responsible for understanding how they all connect.
That fragmentation has become one of Canada’s greatest strategic vulnerabilities.
For decades Canada viewed customs enforcement primarily through the lens of tariffs, taxes and immigration.
Today customs enforcement is a frontline national security function.
Trade-based money laundering has become one of the largest and least understood methods of moving criminal value worldwide.
False invoices, over- and under-invoicing, origin fraud and commercial misrepresentation finance organized crime while simultaneously supporting sanctions evasion, intellectual property theft, illicit technology transfers and strategic capital flight.
The same shipping container may represent legitimate commerce, criminal proceeds and geopolitical influence simultaneously.
Our enforcement architecture rarely sees the complete picture.
Canada does not require another study confirming that money laundering exists.
We already know.
What we need is a fundamental shift in how we understand the threat.
Illicit finance is no longer simply a criminal justice issue.
It is a national security issue.
That means integrating financial intelligence, customs intelligence, tax intelligence, criminal investigations and national security analysis into a common operational picture.
It means treating professional money laundering organizations as strategic threats rather than service providers to individual criminal groups.
It means recognizing trade-based money laundering as a national security vulnerability.
It means strengthening beneficial ownership transparency, expanding oversight of professional facilitators, enhancing customs intelligence and disrupting underground banking networks before they become the financial infrastructure supporting hostile foreign influence.
Canada has long enjoyed the advantages of an open economy, trusted institutions and democratic governance.
Those strengths remain worth defending.
But openness without resilience becomes vulnerability.
For too long we have debated organized crime, foreign interference, money laundering and national security as though they were separate policy challenges.
They are not.
They are different manifestations of the same strategic ecosystem powered by illicit finance.
The next generation of conflict will not be determined solely by military capability or cyber superiority.
It will also be determined by which nations can protect the integrity of their financial systems from exploitation by criminal enterprises and hostile states alike.
That battle is already underway. Canada’s greatest challenge is no longer recognizing the threat.
It is recognizing that the battlefield has fundamentally changed.
Garry Clement is a former RCMP superintendent and one of Canada’s leading experts on financial crime, money laundering and transnational organized crime. He served as the RCMP’s national director of the Proceeds of Crime Program and later held senior anti-money laundering roles in the private sector. He is the author of Under Cover: Inside the Shady World of Organized Crime and the R.C.M.P. and writes regularly on organized crime, illicit finance and national security for The Bureau.
Chinese cranes in B.C. portsraise concerns after U.S. security probe
Chinese crane manufacturer ZPMC has a stronghold in B.C. container terminals; it's unclear what the Canadian government is doing about concerns raised by U.S. officials that extra communications devices have been found on the cranes in U.S. ports.
ZPMC cranes on a ship for the Centerm Expansion Project at Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. Port Metro Vancouver
British Columbia’s major shipping container terminals are outfitted with cranes manufactured by a Chinese company that has sparked a national cybersecurity probe in the United States.
U.S. officials allege they found undisclosed communications components, including cellular modems, on cranes exported by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company (ZPMC) to U.S. ports.
The cybersecurity concerns were serious enough to warrant public disclosure and a special directive from the White House last month, to begin manufacturing such cranes in America.
And it is those concerns that should be heeded by Canadian officials, according to two national security experts here in B.C.
“While Canada still has an existing agreement with the U.S. under the Five Eyes, it would behoove Canada to work with Americans to identify, disrupt and mitigate any efforts by the Chinese to install software in critical Canadian infrastructure, such as these cranes,” said Scott McGregor, a retired military and RCMP intelligence official.
McGregor calls the cybersecurity concerns “credible,” likening them to that of Huawei, which is now banned from Canada’s 5G cellular network.
“This is nothing new. This is a continuation of hybrid warfare efforts conducted by the Chinese,” said McGregor, whose book Mosaic Effect chronicles Chinese Communist Party (CCP) political activity in B.C.
Calvin Chrustie, a retired RCMP transnational crime investigator and partner at the intelligence and security firm Critical Risk Team, said revelations about the crane components are just one part of a broader effort by China to destabilize the economies of America and its allies.
Chrustie said the Chinese government could interfere with port communications to disrupt economic activity in its favour; and it could do so while leveraging transnational organized crime groups.
“If they want to move illicit commodities through our ports, through human resources, i.e., transnational organized crime networks, they also have to have the technology to assist and support them,” said Chrustie.
Former RCMP intelligence expert and B.C. casino analyst Scott McGregor says Canada needs to heed U.S. security warnings on container terminal cranes made in China.
ZPMC ship-to-shore cranes ubiquitous in B.C.
At issue is “ship-to-shore” (STS) cranes manufactured by ZPMC. These are the familiar, large steel structures shooting skyward from port terminals — such as at Deltaport, Vancouver Terminal and Fairview Container Terminal (in Prince Rupert) — that move containers between ships and land.
As recently as February 2022, container terminal operator DP World accepted two new super post-Panamax cranes from ZPMC.
“The cranes were constructed entirely in China and, there, outfitted with state-of-the-art smart technology, which will automate many of the repetitive elements of the lifting cycle,” the operator stated online.
In June 2021, DP World accepted what was then the largest quay crane in Canada in Prince Rupert.
“The ZPMC crane comes with the latest technology and energy efficiency available,” the Chamber of Shipping reported.
Global Container Terminals Inc. (GCT) also has ZPMC cranes in Vancouver and at Deltaport, the province’s flagship terminal.
However, according to GCT spokesperson Marko Dekovic, its STS cranes do not use ZPMC crane control systems to operate the system.
Rather, “our crane control systems are sourced from software and hardware providers from Europe (Sweden) and North America. As such, we do not have any concerns,” Dekovic told Glacier Media via email.
In 2015, ZPMC touted GCT as its “first customer outside China” with “a long-standing relationship with the company.”
Then, Deltaport had just added two more post-Panamax cranes at Deltaport, for a total of 12 such ZPMC cranes, according to a news release.
Spokespersons at Port Metro Vancouver and Port of Prince Rupert, B.C.’s two chief port authorities, both said they do not have control of what equipment is used by container terminal operators, who lease space from the authorities.
Glacier Media reached out to Transport Canada, which regulates the authorities and terminals, to understand if it shares the concerns raised by U.S. officials.
“Transport Canada works with security partners and stakeholders, including those in the United States, to identify and mitigate security threats to Canada’s marine transportation system,” stated a spokesperson by email.
Congressional committees probe Chinese crane manufacturer's links to Chinese military, CCP
Last month, the Committee on Homeland Security called on ZPMC to answer questions about its crane production and potential ties to Chinese military and intelligence units.
In a Feb. 24 letter to ZPMC, via the U.S. Congress, the chairs of the Committee on Homeland Security and Select Committee on China outlined their findings and concerns and posed questions to the company, which is said to have supplied 80 per cent of cranes to U.S. ports.
In noting ZPMC is a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) — “one of the main contractors for the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative, with known ties to the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)” — the letter stated U.S. federal law enforcement agencies had discovered “ZPMC technicians, engineers, or other personnel installed certain components, including cellular modems, onto U.S.-bound STS cranes and other onshore maritime infrastructure.
“These components do not contribute to the operation of the STS cranes or maritime infrastructure and are not part of any existing contract between ZPMC and the receiving U.S. maritime port.”
Furthermore, “some of these modems were found to have active connections to the operational components of the STS cranes.”
The joint committees stated that “while [People’s Republic of China] government officials and various maritime stakeholders, including the American Association of Port Authorities, have previously dismissed the suggestion of this threat as ‘overly paranoid’ or ‘alarmist,’ the Committees have found otherwise.”
The letter also raises the issue of the company maintaining an internal “Communist Party Committee” and taking Chinese government subsidies, allowing it to gain a foothold on the global marine crane market by submitting “unusually low bids for U.S. port contracts,” thus “furthering the CCP’s economic influence within the U.S. maritime sector.”
“Our nation’s dependence on PRC state-owned enterprises, including ZPMC’s port equipment, for international trade, and the lack of sufficient domestic industrial alternatives, introduces significant risk of future exploitation by the CCP, putting the American people in potential danger in future national emergencies,” the committees wrote.
It is not clear what exactly the extra devices are intended to do.
“The Committees have been unable to verify a timeline for installation or their intended purpose. Certain U.S. seaport personnel have communicated to the Committees that they believed the cellular modems were potentially for maintenance, monitoring, or the collection of usage data for the STS cranes,” the letter states.
But the committees note there is the prospect of espionage and sabotage particularly since the ZPMC facility is located next to the PLAN's main shipyard.
“The Committees have serious concerns that this proximity to the PLAN’s main shipyard provides malicious CCP entities, including its intelligence agencies and security services, with ample opportunity to modify U.S.-bound maritime equipment, exploit it to malfunction, or otherwise facilitate cyber espionage thereby compromising U.S. maritime critical infrastructure,” the letter states.
ZPMC issued a statement online March 10, stating it “takes these allegations seriously and considers that such reports, without sufficient review of facts, can easily mislead the public.”
ZPMC asserted the cranes are used in ports around the world, comply with international standards and “pose no cybersecurity risk to any port.”
The committees asked ZPMC to provide answers to their questions by March 14.
Viswanatha, Aruna, Gordon Lubold, and Kate O’Keeffe. 2023. “Pentagon Sees Giant Cargo Cranes as Possible Chinese Spying Tools.”The Wall Street Journal, March 5. Available at https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-sees-giant-cargo-cranes-as-possible-chinese-spying-tools-887c4ade.
Volz, Dustin. 2024. “Espionage Probe Finds Communications Device on Chinese Cranes at U.S. Ports.” The Wall Street Journal, March 7. Available at https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/espionage-probe-finds-communications-device-on-chinese-cargo-cranes-867d32c0.
Winter, Jana, and Raphael Satter. 2025. “Exclusive: US warns hidden radios may be embedded in solar-powered highway infrastructure.” Reuters, September 10. Available at https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-warns-hidden-radios-may-be-embedded-solar-powered-highway-infrastructure-2025-09-10/.
Wood, Graeme. 2024. “Chinese cranes in B.C. ports raise concerns after U.S. security probe.” Vancouver is Awesome. Available at https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/highlights/chinese-cranes-in-bc-ports-raise-concerns-after-us-security-probe-8449667.
Chinese-made cranes used at Canadian portsflagged as security concern by U.S.cont..
Chinese-made cargo cranes that have been flagged as a security concern by an ongoing congressional probe in the United States are widely deployed throughoutCanada's ports.
A House of Representatives' joint committee said its investigation turned up evidence of cellular modems on the Chinese-made port cranes that "do not appear in any way to contribute to the operation … raising significant questions as to their intended applications."
The cranes in question were manufactured by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. (ZPMC), and the U.S. House probe noted the company manufactures its cranes at a site adjacent to a shipyard where the Chinese Communist Party's Navy builds its "most advanced" warships.
"This proximity to … (the) main shipyard provides malicious CCP entities, including its intelligence agencies and security services, with ample opportunity to modify U.S.-bound maritime equipment, exploit it to malfunction, or otherwise facilitate cyber espionage thereby compromising U.S. maritime critical infrastructure," the U.S. House committee said in a Feb 29. letter to ZPMC.
So far, the Canadian government has not voiced similar concerns in public. A spokesman for the Ministry of Public Safety did not provide comment by publication time.
The Chinese embassy in Canada declined to answer questions, but referred to comments made by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a press conference on Jan. 22 that U.S. politicians are being anticompetitive.
"For those U.S. politicians, anything advanced from China can be a 'threat' and must be stopped by all means; perhaps shirts and socks are the only type of Chinese exports that do not threaten the U.S., Wang Wenbin said. "This is sheer bullying and hegemonism."
Big share of market
ZPMC controls an estimated 80 per cent of the U.S. market for port cranes, according to the U.S. House Joint Committee, and it may well have a similar share in Canada.
Port authorities in Canada do not own or operate terminals or their equipment, so "it is up to independent terminal operators to decide on what equipment their operations require," Alex Munro, a spokesman for the Port of Vancouver, said.
Terminal operators at the ports in Halifax, Prince Rupert, B.C., and Vancouver have all announced investments in the company's technology in recent years.
"We just got two of them in the last six months," said Kevin Piper, president of the International Longshoremen's Association Local 269 at the Port of Halifax.
Piper estimated that seven of the port's nine ship-to-shore cranes — which are used to unload shipping vessels — were manufactured by ZPMC, while the two others were manufactured by a German company.
He said the cranes are "highly advanced" machines that require specialized training to maintain and operate.
"It's surprising," he said about the security concerns raised about the ZPMC cranes, "but I guess in this day and age, nothing should be surprising."
Marko Dekovic, vice-president of public affairs at GCT Global Container Terminals Inc., said his terminal at the Vancouver port also uses ZPMC cranes, but has not been contacted by either U.S. or Canadian government officials. He said the terminal does not have any concerns about using the cranes as they "go through a rigorous commissioning process."
China's maritime power grows
The U.S. congressional probe raised two concerns about the modems found on the cranes. First, that they can collect data on container traffic at ports, which could be sent back to China via the modems. Second, they connect to operational components of the crane and that could potentially be used to disable the crane, which fits into a broader concern in the U.S. about China's growing power over maritime traffic.
China has amassed a large naval fleet, manufactures the bulk of global shipping containers and has established footholds in ports.
David Skillicorn, a professor at Queen's University's School of Computing in Kingston, Ont., said the cranes fit into an escalating "arms race" among governments in the cybersphere.
He said many modern devices are connected to the internet, and cranes at a port could be expected to have modems that communicate to a central hub inside the port, protected by a firewall.
"That's all kind of routine," he said. "But you don't really expect the cranes to be making calls on the cell network that could be to anywhere in the world and to completely bypass the firewall, and that's what makes the U.S. Congress unhappy."
Skillicorn said the ports may continue using the ZPMC cranes even though there could be technology embedded inside them that allows the Chinese government to collect data and possibly disrupt activity.
"You're never going to be able to guarantee that there aren't other ones hidden much better inside, especially something the size of a crane," he said.
But Skillicorn said the reason companies and governments purchase Chinese technology is because it's often cheaper, and that opens the possibility of future espionage threats.
Canada has taken some steps to guard against threats from China. In January, the federal Liberals opened a commission to investigate whether China interfered in recent elections. And in 2022, the federal government banned wireless carriers from installing equipment from Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and ZTE Corp. — two of China's largest tech companies — in 5G mobile networks.
In December 2023, Quebec banned the use of technology from Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. Ltd. and Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd., two electronics companies that make video-surveillance and other telecommunications equipment.
Alex He, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont., who specializes in digital governance in China, said Canada's relationship with the Asian giant must be understood as part of the escalating trade war between it and the U.S.
But Canada is a less important trading partner for China than the U.S., which remains a larger export market and produces computer chips and other technological products.
"In the near future, I cannot see any improvement in the relationship," he said about Canada and China.
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