Exclusive: RCMP Was Inside US Suspect's Chemical Lab in Early 2020 — and Sent Him a Fentanyl Recipe

Almost four years before US sanctions named his company as the only Western Hemisphere node of an alleged Chinese fentanyl trafficking syndicate, Bobby Shah was already known to the RCMP.

BRITISH COLUMBIA – In early 2020, almost four years before unilateral US Treasury sanctions named Vancouver businessman Bobby Shah and his company Valerian Labs Inc. as the only Western Hemisphere node of an alleged Chinese fentanyl trafficking syndicate, the RCMP’s chemical diversion unit had already visited Shah’s Port Coquitlam laboratory.

What followed was an extraordinary exchange that raises significant questions about Canada’s counter-narcotics apparatus. Emails and documents obtained by The Bureau describe a cat-and-mouse conversation between Shah and a senior RCMP officer, followed by a surprising aftermath in which the RCMP emailed Shah a recipe for fentanyl production.

Those documents include a verified email exchange between Shah and a BC-based RCMP officer, and a certified Federal Court transcript — revealing that the US Drug Enforcement Administration was investigating Shah prior to the October 2023 Treasury sanctions, a fact never previously disclosed by Ottawa, but confirmed under oath by a Health Canada official in Federal Court proceedings in March 2024.

The documents raise more questions than they answer.

The RCMP’s Ottawa leadership declined to respond to detailed questions from The Bureau seeking clarity on whether the RCMP is considering charges against Shah, or whether Shah is considered a suspect in a broader fentanyl lab investigation in British Columbia — including in connection with the notorious superlab raided in Falkland, BC, in October 2024.

As previously reported by The Bureau, the BC Director of Civil Forfeiture is seeking the forfeiture of Shah’s $3.4-million Maple Ridge mansion, raided by the RCMP in December 2024, alleging it is both the proceeds and an instrument of unlawful activity connected to Shah’s role in the China-based syndicate identified in the US Treasury sanctions. The RCMP’s December 2024 search — which occurred weeks after the October 2024 Falkland superlab takedown — produced approximately 17,607 kilograms and 44,207 litres of chemicals, 255 kilograms of unidentified white powder packaged in a manner consistent with drug trafficking, a 50-ton hydraulic press, and a money-counting machine, among other items.

Shah continues to deny all allegations of wrongdoing, maintaining, as he has since the US Treasury sanctions, that Health Canada was wrong to revoke his licence — a position he says is supported by sworn testimony from Health Canada’s own authorizations official. Shah further argues the Director’s civil forfeiture claim is constitutionally overreaching and unsupported by the evidence.

As reported by The Bureau in August 2025, in multiple interviews with senior US officials — including retired acting DEA Director Derek Maltz — American investigators complained that the RCMP stonewalled their requests to cooperate on investigations into Shah and Canadian networks connected to the notorious Falkland superlab, which Shah denies being part of.

DEA investigators were stunned when the Falkland case — a file their own officers had been developing for years and brought to Ottawa’s attention via the US Embassy in late 2022 — suddenly became public in October 2024, with the RCMP having blocked American investigators from the case they had originated.

“There are some precursor chemicals being shipped from China, destined for Vancouver,” one US government source recalled of that outreach. “We think it’s going to some guy out there that could be tied into a bunch of precursor and potential lab stuff.”

What The Bureau can now report, for the first time, is that Bobby Shah had been on the RCMP’s radar for chemical shipments from China since early 2020 — and the documents obtained by The Bureau reveal the sequence of events that preceded Ottawa’s alleged stonewalling of American investigators, and what that sequence says about the gap between what Canadian federal law enforcement knew, when they knew it, and what they did about it.