Side by Side: Two Chinese Crime Families, Two Luxury Drug Labs, and Suspicious Mortgages on Burnaby’s Ridge Drive

In Vancouver, side-by-side mansions reveal a node in China's synthetic drug and laundering networks.

This image shows the two Ridge Drive mansions targeted in separate RCMP investigations. One of the homes appears blurred in a Google Street View photo.

VANCOUVER — B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture Office has targeted a $3.5 million home on Burnaby’s prestigious Ridge Drive after an RCMP raid uncovered a stunning array of synthetic narcotics, precursor chemicals, pill-pressing machines and dies that indicate a small factory for synthetic drug production and trafficking tied to a Chinese family. Equally alarming, the house sits directly beside a 5,000-square-foot mansion already targeted in a separate civil forfeiture case last year involving six properties and a similar range of narcotics, involving a different Chinese family.

Taken together, the two Ridge Drive files suggest a startling pattern: two alleged Chinese crime families operating side by side on one of Burnaby’s most exclusive streets. Whether the proximity points to a trusted network or is a coincidence remains an open question. But The Bureau’s previous investigation into the 5,000-square-foot drug house found a man not only convicted for narcotics production, but listed as a director in a Guangdong-based community association with deep ties to Beijing’s United Front Work Department, and also British Columbia’s government. What is clear, however, about the neighbouring Ridge Drive homes targeted by the RCMP — tied to an array of other homes worth $15 million in total — is the latest case implicates suspicious mortgages from some of Canada’s largest banks, according to the forfeiture claim, exposing how mainstream lenders have become financially entangled in high-stakes laundering investigations.

The more recent forfeiture claim, filed in B.C. Supreme Court this spring, targets two properties valued at a combined $4.5 million, three vehicles, and relatively modest amounts of cash. At its centre is a seven-bedroom home on Ridge Drive, assessed at nearly $3.5 million, alongside a townhouse on Westminster Highway in Richmond, worth just under $1 million. Also named are a 2015 Land Rover, a 2019 Toyota Prius, and a 2023 Tesla Model 3. The defendants include a father named G.H. Li, his son J. Li, and two other suspects, S. Vong, and P. Vong.

Under surveillance in early October 2024, the RCMP observed the network in motion. On October 6, 2024, S. Vong met with an individual and delivered 19 kilograms of MDMA. Three days later, on October 9, G. Li used a Toyota to deliver 10,000 MDMA pills to another individual. At the same time, J. Li was transporting cannabis in a black garbage bag with a Tesla, moving it in and out of the Ridge Drive property.

On February 27, 2025, the investigation advanced. That day, S. Vong was arrested and found carrying $160 in Canadian currency, which the RCMP seized. Hours later, the RCMP executed a search warrant at the Westminster Highway property. Inside, they located $10,000 in Canadian currency, 734.3 grams of methamphetamine, transaction records including notes of sales, collections, and debts, a laptop, a Samsung tablet, multiple cell phones, and tools such as buckets and measuring cups that carried traces of ephedrine. The evidence demonstrated the property was used as a base for methamphetamine supply and drug-sale tracking.

On April 3, 2025, the RCMP executed a second warrant, this time at the Ridge Drive property. The search uncovered 2.5 kilograms of MDMA and ketamine, along with approximately 3,000 synthetic pills containing MDMA, methamphetamine, and caffeine. Investigators seized 601 cannabis plants, 20 kilograms of cannabis shake, and about 13 kilograms of dried cannabis packaged into half-pound heat-sealed bags. Cannabis growing equipment was present throughout the house.

They also found two narcotics pill presses with multiple pill dies, grinders, pill lubricants, weigh scales, and funnels. Kilograms of unidentified powders were seized, as well as bulk supplies of small Ziploc bags and milliliter vials, consistent with distribution packaging. The property also contained three vehicles — the Prius, the Tesla, and the Land Rover — and $1,730 in Canadian currency.

The investigation continued into the spring. On May 8, 2025, the RCMP searched the Toyota used in earlier deliveries. Officers also reported finding kilograms of unidentified powders and 247 pills of various shapes and colours with suspicious chemical content.

Absent criminal charges, the province’s lawsuit frames the case as full-scale drug production and trafficking, not simple possession. Alleged violations include cultivation and sale of illicit cannabis under the Cannabis Control and Licensing Act, as well as the manufacture and distribution of synthetic narcotics under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Parallel raids the same day turned up more evidence. At the Richmond townhouse, RCMP found $10,000 in cash, 734 grams of methamphetamine, multiple cellphones, and records investigators described as sales and debt ledgers.

But the defendants have filed responses denying the claims. They argue that the properties and vehicles were not acquired with unlawful proceeds.

G. Li, owner of the Ridge Drive mansion, for his part, emphasizes that he held a valid federal licence to produce cannabis for medical purposes at the Ridge Drive home and had recently renewed it. His defense argues that the plants discovered were consistent with this authorization and that RCMP exceeded the scope of their search warrant when they seized vehicles. He notes that no criminal charges have been recommended against him or his son J. Li and denies that the residence was used for trafficking.

S. Vong in particular goes further: in his statement of defense, he denies all allegations outright and claims the Richmond RCMP violated his rights in their searches and seizures, specifically citing breaches of sections 7, 8, and 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He insists the Westminster townhouse was not acquired or maintained with unlawful proceeds and argues that the forfeiture case rests entirely on rights violations.

The defendants’ position highlights a larger legal tension. Numerous police experts argue that Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms — designed to protect against unreasonable search, seizure, and punishment — has the effect of hampering the state’s ability to pursue complex criminal prosecutions, particularly in transnational organized crime and narcotics cases where evidence is technical, voluminous, and often contested. At the same time, defense lawyers tend to argue that B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture regime, which operates on the lower civil standard of proof, is increasingly used as a substitute for full criminal prosecution.

At stake is the liquidation of millions in assets.

The Director of Civil Forfeiture is asking the court to authorize the sale of the Ridge Drive mansion, the Richmond townhouse, the vehicles, and cash, with proceeds directed into the province’s forfeiture fund. Any liquidation would first satisfy the interests of lenders, and the financial records read like a cross-section of Canada’s banking system.

The Ridge Drive property carries a mortgage with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and Cambridge Mortgage Investment Corporation registered a fresh loan and assignment of rents against the home in April 2025. The Richmond townhouse is mortgaged with Scotia Mortgage Corporation, and the Tesla is encumbered by a conditional sales agreement with the Royal Bank of Canada.

What seems to have emerged, in the Director’s minimalist filings, is a key feature of the so-called “Vancouver Model” of real estate laundering, examined in detail by the Cullen Commission. The Commission, which grew out of the investigative reporting of The Bureau’s founder, showed how fentanyl trafficking networks leveraged multiple mortgages to clean illicit funds. The schemes typically relied on high-rolling gamblers from China who took massive cash loans from Chinese organized crime to purchase chips in British Columbia government casinos, most notably in Burnaby and Richmond. In larger cases, drug traffickers cycled their proceeds through real estate, obtaining repeated loans from fentanyl networks and making payments with laundered money.

In this new case, the Civil Forfeiture Office notes that G. Li financed the purchase of the Ridge Drive mansion in part with a mortgage and, over time, obtained further financing through additional loans.

Similarly, the Director alleges: “On or about December 5, 2017, P. Vong became the registered owner in fee simple of the Westminster Highway Property. P. Vong financed the purchase of the Westminster Highway Property in part with a mortgage and has, at times, secured further financing in part with mortgages.”

None of these Canadian financial institutions are alleged to have had knowledge of drug activity, but their exposure underscores a systemic risk. As the Cullen Commission found, layering mortgages through private lenders has long been a preferred laundering tactic for Asian organized crime groups in B.C. With Canadian banks, the Cullen Commission examined their involvement in the “Vancouver Model” behind a veil of secrecy. The Ridge Drive cases bring the Commission’s warnings into sharp relief: alleged synthetic and cannabis drug factories operating inside multimillion-dollar homes, financed through mainstream institutions.

This latest Ridge Drive case is even more troubling for its geography. The house now under forfeiture sits directly beside another on Ridge Drive, seized last year after RCMP alleged the Chuang family operated a drug and laundering hub there. That earlier investigation uncovered firearms, body armour, foreign currencies packaged for underground banking, and hundreds of cannabis plants alongside synthetic drug evidence. The only defendant with a criminal record, X. Chuang, has past convictions for production of a controlled substance.

The Bureau also confirmed that 2734 Euclid Avenue — listed in the Director’s filings as Chuang’s last known Vancouver address — is one of fifteen registered addresses of a Guangdong-linked community group tied to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department. The Guangdong Federation behind the association operates in more than 130 countries, and its members were once barred from entering Vancouver for a suspected United Front international gathering — a ban that was condemned by Vancouver community leaders with strong ties to the B.C. government, including figures who had traveled with former Premier Christy Clark on a trade mission to China. The episode underscores how Guangdong Communist Party networks have long been viewed as a concern by Canadian intelligence agencies.

Whether the proximity of the two Ridge Drive cases suggests a larger network and coordination between families, or is simply an extraordinary coincidence, remains unclear. What is beyond dispute is that two neighbouring multimillion-dollar homes on a luxury street have been pulled into major narcotics and laundering cases within two years — a striking fact that highlights persistent weaknesses in British Columbia’s real estate, lending, and financial oversight systems despite years of inquiry.

Civil forfeiture actions proceed on a balance of probabilities rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and the province’s allegations have not yet been tested in court.

Vancouver Model Pattern Analysis of Ridge Drive Cases

• Mortgage Layering: Both families financed luxury homes through repeated mortgages with major Canadian banks and private lenders, allegedly embedding illicit proceeds into legitimate financial instruments.

• Narcotics Evidence: RCMP uncovered pill presses, unidentified powders, and synthetic drug tablets consistent with localized production cells, not mere overproduction of cannabis.

• Foreign Influence Links: The earlier Ridge Drive case tied X. Chuang to the Chaoshan association, part of the Guangdong Overseas Chinese Federation — an entity tied to Beijing’s United Front Work Department.

• Systemic Risk: The entanglement of mainstream lenders — CIBC, RBC, Scotia, and Cambridge — shows how organized crime continues to exploit gaps in Canada’s financial and property systems.

• Policy Gap: With few criminal charges pursued, B.C. has relied heavily on civil forfeiture, raising questions about whether seizures disrupt networks or simply reallocate assets while systemic vulnerabilities persist.