Cross-Border Crime and Law Enforcement Challenges

VANCOUVER — In today’s Bureau podcast, Sam Cooper joins Jason James of BNN to probe the causes of RCMP non-cooperation before a U.S. Treasury sanction forced Canada’s police to investigate the Falkland superlab. The massive site in British Columbia contained enough precursor chemicals to manufacture 95 million lethal doses of fentanyl, exposing Canada’s deep links to Chinese and Mexican cartel networks.

Sam traces how the case connects to decades of failures in Ottawa: RCMP resistance to joint investigations and U.S. intelligence sharing; entrenched cartel financiers from China working with Mexican lab operators and distributors; Iran-linked laundering and trafficking and terror-financing actors; and Indian crime groups dominating Canada’s transportation infrastructure.

The discussion turns to the Cameron Ortis scandal, where the former RCMP intelligence chief was convicted of selling Five Eyes secrets to some of the very Vancouver-based Sinaloa Cartel and Iranian threat networks tied to the Falkland case. For Washington, the broader concern goes beyond legal loopholes — it points to possible corruption or high-level cover for foreign threat actors operating inside Canada.

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