REPOST: Indicators of Corruption in RCMP, CBSA, and Canadian Government Preceded Toronto Police Narco-Corruption Scandal

Editor’s Note

Since launching in June 2023, The Bureau has published over 650 stories. The investigation you’re about to read, posted February 8, 2025, remains our most popular—and for good reason. In light of this week’s explosive revelations about systematic corruption within the Toronto Police Service, in a case that alleges Toronto police officers facilitated a sophisticated transnational fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana pipeline with evident connections to Latin Cartels, we believe it's crucial to revisit the warnings we issued 363 days ago about deeper, more troubling vulnerabilities within Canadian law enforcement.

While other media scramble to cover the TPS scandal as breaking news, The Bureau has been documenting this crisis at the federal level for years. This story—based on interviews with veteran U.S. and Canadian law enforcement officials—detailed something far more alarming than localized police corruption. Our sources alleged systematic obstruction of investigations into transnational organized crime at the highest levels of Canadian federal agencies.

Our sources revealed that American agencies, including Homeland Security and the DEA, had effectively sidelined Canadian law enforcement from sensitive investigations due to suspected infiltration and corruption. They described intelligence-sharing cutoffs, blocked investigations into Asian organized crime networks, and concerns that reached into the Prime Minister’s office itself. Most significantly, they warned that the Cameron Ortis case—Canada’s convicted intelligence leaker—was not an isolated incident but evidence of systemic compromise.

The TPS corruption scandal now validates these warnings. Much remains to be seen, but York Regional Police appear to have led a diligent and unflinching investigation, albeit one that seems to have been driven by the fact a Canadian law enforcement official was targeted for homicide. The Bureau’s sources confirm it is well known within Canadian police that corruption concerns have saturated numerous departments. Cameron Ortis’s case had evidence of deep corruption that extended well beyond himself, a fact that was not acknowledged by Canada’s government in the aftermath.

The pattern is unmistakable: organized crime has not merely exploited gaps in Canadian law enforcement—it has actively compromised it. Transnational gangs have access to files that allow them to target their competitors and innocent citizens. There are indications that Chinese Communist agents could similarly have access to police files that may enable targeting of politicians, The Bureau has been informed credibly. While the TPS story focuses on local detectives selling confidential information, our reporting exposed federal-level obstruction of billion-dollar money laundering investigations, blocked intelligence on fentanyl trafficking networks, and corruption concerns that caused the Biden and Trump administrations to lose faith in Canada’s institutions.

Ottawa has not addressed these vulnerabilities. Instead, political leaders have responded to criticism—including from U.S. President Trump—with denialism. Our sources warned that Canada’s inability to confront Asian organized crime, Hezbollah money laundering networks, and Mexican cartel infiltration in Canada’s law enforcement systems, was not merely incompetence. They described a pattern suggesting corruption and political interference that prevented investigations from advancing.

This story documented a crisis that threatens national sovereignty—one that Ottawa continues to defensively ignore even as the evidence mounts.

We republish this investigation not as vindication, but as an urgent reminder: the corruption now making headlines in Toronto is symptomatic of vulnerabilities that reach far higher and cut far deeper than Canadians have been led to believe.

The Bureau’s expertise is about more than drugs, corruption and ineffective governance. Our second most-read story, posted February 4, 2024, accurately exposed the systematic scheme of Chinese transnational money laundering run through Toronto banks into local real estate—the same type of corruption prosecuted by the U.S. government in the TD Bank fentanyl money laundering scandal, a systemic vulnerability in Canada still largely unaddressed by the Canadian government.

OTTAWA February 8, 2025

Veteran law enforcement officials—both active and retired—from the United States and Canada have come forward with explosive allegations suggesting that Canada’s federal government may have systematically obstructed investigations into the highest levels of Asian organized crime. According to these sources, American agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, have grown so alarmed by suspected corruption and legal loopholes in Canada that they have effectively sidelined Canadian law enforcement from sensitive investigations and intelligence-sharing.

Several veterans of Canadian law enforcement argue that while U.S. President Donald Trump’s critiques of Canada’s handling of fentanyl trafficking and border security are politically charged and often harsh, they underscore an uncomfortable reality: Canada is increasingly perceived as compromised—either incapable or unwilling to confront entrenched transnational criminal networks. American and Canadian sources alike describe a nation whose law enforcement agencies are in disarray, inhibited by suspected infiltration at the highest levels, obstructing investigations into billion-dollar drug networks and money laundering operations.

These American and Canadian experts pointed to the notorious case of Cameron Ortis, Canada’s former top police intelligence official, who was convicted of leaking Five Eyes signals intelligence to some of the world’s most dangerous Iranian state-sponsored criminals. His case, still cloaked in national security secrecy, is believed to have also involved Chinese espionage investigations. But concerns about corruption within Canada’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies extend far beyond Ortis himself, according to enforcement experts who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Several said that U.S. officials suspect corruption within the ranks of Canadian border authorities, yet those suspects allegedly retained their security clearances.

“It was mind-boggling. The Americans would say, we have good reason to suspect that this particular CBSA officer is corrupt,” a Canadian policing expert said. “This information would be provided to higher-ups in CBSA with the understanding that this particular CBSA officer is not to show up at any future joint meetings. So eventually there would be a meeting, and the CBSA officer in question would show up at the meeting. The lead American investigator would end the meeting before it started. The Americans would shake their heads in disgust and disbelief.”

The expert said this growing distrust is a key reason why the United States has scaled back its collaboration with Canadian law enforcement over the past decade.

“The border as it’s run now is—Homeland Security, they have no respect for CBSA, none,” the expert said. “CBSA were seen as tax collectors for picking on families coming across the border with two bottles of wine and not actually doing police seizures of proper amounts of drugs coming through the border. It was a longstanding joke that they were basically collecting taxes for a mom and dad driving back with two packs of cigarettes and too many six-packs of beer, while behind it, there’s a truck coming with 200, 300, 500 kilos of cocaine. It was just ridiculous. And that’s how Homeland Security and DEA saw our CBSA.

“And I don’t want to paint every CBSA officer with that brush as being useless—some of them are excellent people,” they added. “But it’s just run so poorly. The level of incompetence within Canadian law enforcement is staggering. I don’t think people understand—if they did, they’d probably be too scared to know how bad it actually is.”

Several veteran law enforcement officials say concerns extend beyond Canada’s ability to confront transnational crime—to the country’s political leadership itself. According to two RCMP experts, quiet surveillance operations have raised alarms after placing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a former cabinet minister in proximity to Asian organized crime suspects.

“There were real concerns about Asian organized crime figures being at Liberal fundraisers with access to Prime Minister Trudeau,” one veteran enforcement source said. “This is deeply concerning. It was openly discussed in some units. Again, when you are talking about billions of dollars in criminal profits, this equals real power and influence. I’m not accusing the Prime Minister or any politician of being corrupt. But we would be naive to think that ultra-rich criminals don’t use their resources in an attempt to sway or influence prominent people.”

Highlighting the elite capabilities of U.S. agencies they worked closely with, the expert added, “We dealt with Homeland Security on different investigations where they were using very sensitive intel techniques—as good as anything that exists for law enforcement. They could easily have captured criminals with information related to the Canadian government or other officials that might not come to light through Canadian investigations.”

The police expert, explaining the decision to come forward at a pivotal moment in U.S.-Canada relations, argued that Canadians remain largely unaware of the nation's vulnerabilities.

“People have to be able to see and understand how bad it is. We are not even considered a serious partner, vis-à-vis Trump, at this point. Fentanyl coming from Canada to the USA isn’t something Trump is just throwing out there. He’s getting this information from top American law enforcement officials who know exactly how far Canada has fallen. And as a police officer who risked my life countless times alongside other brave men and women, I find it embarrassing that we’ve let our country get to this state.”

According to multiple enforcement veterans, American agencies began withholding intelligence more than ten years ago after repeated incidents in which top‐secret files were jeopardized or blocked by Canadian legal demands.

“The level of stuff the Americans were willing to work with us on was incredible, but we were so hamstrung by Canadian disclosure laws and RCMP policies—written to protect the RCMP from potential embarrassments rather than to protect Canadians from actual dangers,” said a federal veteran with direct knowledge of Five Eyes law enforcement.

The veteran described learning of briefings from senior Washington officials “where they showed how intelligence was disseminated, and it was shared with the Five Eyes partners—excluding Canada. It was embarrassing.”

At the center of U.S. government alarm, sources believe, is the case of Sam Gor—one of the world’s most powerful Triad drug trafficking networks, with reported links to Chinese Communist Party operatives, according to U.S. government experts such as former Trump State Department official David Asher.

Three Canadian experts said Australia had warned Canada about the threat posed by Sam Gor—also known as “The Company”—long before the RCMP recognized it as a major transnational syndicate. Widely regarded as a highly sophisticated enterprise, Sam Gor links Southeast Asian drug networks—responsible for trafficking tens of billions of dollars in fentanyl and methamphetamine—to global operations involving Latin American cartels and large-scale money laundering.

Canada’s largest-ever money laundering investigation, E-Pirate, was directly linked to Sam Gor—a fact not widely disclosed, according to a Canadian source with direct knowledge of the case. The investigation collapsed in late 2019 after a police witness was exposed, resulting in a high-profile failure in federal court. Since then, Sam Gor’s leaders have continued to exploit Canada for fentanyl trafficking and money laundering, facing little resistance. E-Pirate uncovered how their operations funneled billions in drug cash through British Columbia government casinos, hundreds of Chinese bank accounts, and vast pools of illicit funds circulating throughout Latin America.

“For example, the Americans—the intel these guys were giving us on money laundering associated to B.C. government casinos and the E-Pirate investigations—the Americans were more than willing to take this on, but it’s in Canada,” a veteran enforcement source said. “It was the Sam Gor crime group or The Company, as police sometimes call it. We had information on some of those people operating across Western Canada—these huge cells of Asian organized crime—and investigations would stall due to delays with approvals or shifting priorities, dictated ultimately by Ottawa.”

The veteran enforcement expert said senior officers often voiced frustration that navigating the bureaucratic obstacles imposed by the RCMP was, at times, more difficult than pursuing the criminal networks themselves. “Obviously, checks and balances are needed when conducting police investigations,” they said. “But the RCMP had become so risk-averse that it crippled countless Canadian investigations and left our foreign partners questioning Canada’s commitment to fighting organized crime.”

The very way in which the RCMP first became aware of Sam Gor stood as a stark example of Canada’s systemic failures in policing and justice.

“With the Sam Gor group, the Australian Federal Police would meet with the RCMP and provide valuable information related to crimes taking place or originating in Canada. The AFP were professional and wanted to work with us. Yet again, we couldn’t get traction from Ottawa to work these investigations.”

That perspective—that Canada’s allies lost trust in Ottawa’s capacity to counter Chinese networks that directly threaten the United States—is shared by David Asher, a senior financial investigator whose career spans high-profile cases for the DEA and CIA.

In a previous interview, Asher told The Bureau that U.S. investigators believe Sam Gor’s top leaders, based primarily in Toronto and Vancouver, function as the “command and control” hub for Western Hemisphere money laundering tied to fentanyl trafficking. American investigations indicate that fentanyl is primarily smuggled into the United States by the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels, which work closely with Triad money brokers who finance drug trafficking, coordinate global logistics for laundering operations, and supply chemical precursors sourced from China.

“My own personal view is that this is a scheme that does have a high degree of command and control based on evidence through Canada. But it is not a scheme that we have managed to wholly penetrate due to, frankly, in my mind, inadequate cooperation from the Canadian government," Asher said. "The Canadian government has just not been—they’re not the level of partners that we used to have. We used to have a great relationship with Canada, but it doesn’t exist right now.”

A Canadian source pointed to another particularly troubling case involving Asian organized crime networks.

“There was a source of information with global intelligence value—including Asian organized crime—but using this source was blocked by Ottawa due to a frivolous matter. The potential benefit for Canada and its partners was immense and far outweighed any concerns about the source. Yet we couldn’t proceed. It was absurd.”

It was another decision emblematic of Canada’s failure to gather critical criminal intelligence. As a result, American law enforcement agencies began cultivating their own Canadian-based sources, having lost faith in the RCMP’s ability—or willingness—to do so.

“Intelligence on transnational crime operating in Canada was, and still is, being gathered by Americans—not Canadians,” an expert said.

And the consequences in this case extended far beyond Canada’s borders.

“There were large drug busts in Europe that Canadian law enforcement could have potentially helped uncover earlier,” the expert said, “but something within was always blocking us.”

Multiple veterans said this misalignment in priorities was particularly evident when Cameron Ortis led RCMP intelligence. Ottawa dictated a list of national priorities for the Federal Unit, but these often diverged sharply from intelligence gathered directly by investigators and analysts with firsthand access to Canadian and foreign sources. Instead of targeting the most sophisticated organized crime networks, directives focused on smaller, more manageable crime groups—what officers saw as “low-hanging fruit”—while larger, deeply entrenched threats like Asian organized crime flourished. These groups had infiltrated Canada at all levels of high-level criminality, including drug trafficking, fentanyl production, and money laundering.

“Investigators and analysts would look at each other and say, ‘This doesn’t make any sense,’” a veteran enforcement source said. “We knew the threat that multi-billion-dollar crime groups posed went far beyond just lining their pockets with obscene riches. That type of money allows for influence over people, which would include people with political influence.”

The veteran enforcement source painted a stark picture of how policing in Canada has changed over the past 15 years, describing modern RCMP investigations as “drastically neutered” compared to the past. Nowhere was this more evident, they said, than in the handling of human sources—criminals who cooperate with law enforcement, often at great risk to themselves.

“The handling of human sources can be highly effective even though it is fraught with risks,” the expert said, calling it “just the nature of the beast.”

But rather than refining their approach and learning from past missteps, the RCMP had instead imposed sweeping restrictions that effectively sidelined one of law enforcement’s most powerful tools, they said.

“The current policies have crippled countless investigations,” they said.

The shift had also strained Canada’s relationship with its closest allies. When these policies were explained to American law enforcement partners, the reaction was disbelief. “They cannot fathom it, and it makes Canada appear reticent and scared.” As a result, U.S. agencies increasingly recruit their own Canadian sources, knowing they cannot rely on Canada’s federal police to do the same.

One expert said these restrictions had led many Canadian and American officers to question whether bureaucratic inertia was the sole reason for the shift—or “if something more sinister, like corruption, is taking place.”

“If you want to derail investigations in Canada one place to start is by writing policies that handcuff hard-working officers from being able to do their jobs,” they said. “If Cameron Ortis was corrupt, then who’s to say that others in influential positions writing policies haven’t been compromised? These are real concerns amongst federal police officers and among American law enforcement agencies.”

Nowhere were these unsettling suspicions more pronounced than in cases involving Asian organized crime, a veteran enforcement source reiterated.

“Ottawa just seemed reluctant to acknowledge this as the top threat,” they said.

The source recalled that law enforcement had informants feeding intelligence on a broad spectrum of organized crime groups. But when it came to high-level Asian syndicates, there was a noticeable chill.

“Those with knowledge were extremely reluctant to discuss these groups,” the expert said, citing “strong indications in the criminal world that these groups had corrupted officials in Canada.”

Despite mounting evidence that Asian organized crime groups were operating at an industrial scale—running sophisticated money laundering schemes, private casinos, and vast drug trafficking and production operations—efforts to gain traction with Ottawa repeatedly stalled. Investigators found themselves facing inexplicable roadblocks.

“The reasons for delays on approvals given made no sense,” a veteran said. “It was as though we were being blocked from within.”

But the revelations of Cameron Ortis’s alleged betrayal in late 2019 provided the missing puzzle piece. Ortis is appealing his conviction, while the Crown seeks to extend his 14-year sentence, arguing that the judge "erred by imposing a sentence that was demonstrably unfit, given the gravity of the offences."

While Ortis wasn’t convicted on China-related charges due to a Canadian judge’s decision, prosecutors accused him of stealing espionage-related “Orcon and Gamma” intelligence after 2015, including U.S. signals intelligence. Police and prosecutors believe he was poised to share this information with Chinese diplomats in September 2019. An RCMP document unsealed after his conviction states that in mid-2019, Ortis was caught searching RCMP databases. "Among his queries were subjects that related to China, embassies, and something that appears to be a national security investigation."

“When the Cameron Ortis story broke, it was not a shock,” a Canadian police veteran said. “It made sense. He was director of intelligence for the RCMP. He had enormous sway as to what the federal investigative priorities were.”

Ortis wasn’t just an influential figure—he was instrumental at the highest levels of decision-making. As the right-hand man to the RCMP commissioner, he wielded control over which major investigations moved forward and which were quietly sidelined.

Federal units required Ottawa’s approval for large-scale funding and access to the most advanced investigative techniques, an expert explained.

“When funding is withheld or specialized techniques are denied, investigations stall and are shelved,” they said.

According to the source, while some senior officers pushed back against directives from Ottawa, doing so came at a cost. Ambitious officers who challenged decisions too aggressively risked derailing their careers.

But concerns about institutional decay predated Ortis’s arrest.

“Even before Ortis was exposed, many officers suspected something was wrong. It appeared systematic,” an expert said. “Unqualified people were placed or promoted into key positions. I believe there have been and are more Ortises—meaning corrupt. There are some who are just useful idiots. Unqualified officers placed into positions incapable of doing the job.”

The assessment of Ortis’s strategic influence in diverting RCMP investigations from sensitive Five Eyes targets is echoed by a former colleague of David Asher, who requested anonymity. In hindsight, the elite U.S. government source believes Ortis and other RCMP officers compromised U.S. investigations into powerful transnational Hezbollah money laundering networks embedded in multiple Canadian cities. These DEA-led investigations linked Latin American cartels to Iran, with major money laundering operatives based in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Windsor, and other locations across Canada.

“It really bothered me. It was very clear how Canada was a very, very big part of Hezbollah’s transnational narco-terrorism,” the expert said in a previous interview. “But RCMP made it very clear at that time, they didn’t want to bear down on money laundering and drug trafficking.”

But the problem, a Canadian expert added, extends beyond the federal level, seeping into provincial and detachment-level policing as well. Years of poor leadership and mismanagement have left many Canadian police units in disarray.

“Countless units and detachments have been run into the ground through sheer incompetence,” the source said. “This has caused severe morale issues and hollowed out the core of the RCMP.”

Despite these structural failures, the expert emphasized that most RCMP officers remained dedicated professionals, risking their safety to serve.

“Again, like CBSA, the majority of officers are outstanding individuals who dedicate and risk their health and lives to do the job,” the source said. “But the organization is failing, and our foreign counterparts can see this when they work joint operations with us.”

Three experts noted that many Canadian politicians and media outlets have responded to Trump’s assertions—particularly his claim that Canada, and British Columbia in particular, is a major fentanyl trafficking concern for the United States—with outright denialism.

“Trump’s delivery method isn’t great,” one said. “He could use a little bit more tact. But he’s not wrong. He’s totally not wrong.”

The hollowing of Canadian enforcement extends to the tactical level of border security. A veteran officer confirmed that fewer than one percent of containers are searched at Vancouver-area ports, reinforcing concerns raised by local officials. They pointed to Deltaport—Canada’s busiest port and the fourth largest in North America—which processes over 2.4 million containers annually. Yet, according to Police Chief Neil Dubord, only about 0.5 percent undergo detailed inspection before being loaded onto ships or trucks.

“Well, how many precursors for fentanyl or methamphetamines or whatever is pouring in through those ports—wide open points?” one veteran with knowledge of Vancouver port and global criminal investigations said.

“And then we know that the smart criminals go out to outlying areas that don’t have a large police presence—like, say, Falkland or some rural spot like that. That’s a prime area to set up their labs. This was very common with large, commercial-sized grow ops. I’m not comparing pot to fentanyl by any stretch—just the method is the same. Drug labs and grow ops in rural areas have a better chance of avoiding police detection. That doesn’t mean larger urban centers aren’t used as well—it’s just that the fewer eyes around, the easier it is to operate. The smart guys had bunkers built way out in small places where there were few police officers, and they operated untouched for years.”

These accounts—from multiple federal enforcement veterans—depict an alarming reality: Canada may no longer be equipped, or even willing, to confront the most dangerous international criminal organizations within its borders. Allegations of corruption, blocked investigations, and diminished trust from close allies paint a terrifying portrait of a compromised nation. Whether through political interference, flawed legal frameworks, or infiltration at the highest levels of agencies like the RCMP and CBSA, Canada stands accused of allowing powerful criminal networks to operate with near impunity. The veterans who once believed in the country’s ability to combat transnational crime now call for a reckoning, hoping that widespread awareness of the crisis might force long-overdue reforms in Canadian law enforcement and intelligence institutions. Without decisive action, they warn, Canada risks losing any remaining credibility as a sovereign force in the fight against organized crime.

“The more people who understand how broken it is, the better the chance of forcing some level of change with the next government,” said a veteran of Five Eyes law enforcement probes, including the E-Pirate case.

“The Ortis case proves it’s true. He was the right-hand man of the RCMP commissioner. And when the guy at the top is blocking or compromising investigations, it’s Canadians who suffer—while criminal organizations only grow stronger and more influential with their wealth,” they argued. “It’s 2025, and our closest ally no longer trusts us. We are seen as insignificant, incapable of conducting high-level law enforcement, and too compromised to be useful.”