The Bureau Podcast

OTTAWA / LOS ANGELES — In this discussion with Chris Meyer of Widefountain, we dig deeper into my findings on an explosive narcotics precursor case quietly dropped by Canadian prosecutors—and what it reveals about Canada's growing vulnerabilities to foreign infiltration.We unpack the story of a Chinese chemist, known here as Dr. X, who was charged with importing more than 100 kilograms of PMK ethyl glycidate—a key chemical used in the production of MDMA (ecstasy). Court records in combination with open source findings show Dr. X had direct ties to a bio-pharmaceutical firm affiliated with the University of British Columbia, and was reportedly recruited under Beijing’s “Thousand Talents Plan”—a program U.S. intelligence agencies warn is used to facilitate espionage and the transfer of dual-use technologies.The case forms part of a broader pattern uncovered by The Bureau and Widefountain, pointing to Chinese state-linked facilitation of poly-drug trafficking and money laundering operations across the Western Hemisphere.This episode raises urgent questions about the deepening intersection between synthetic drug networks and foreign interference efforts operating within Canada.We explore new revelations from The Bureau’s reporting, including:* Dr. X’s links to community groups operating under the CCP’s United Front Work Department, Beijing’s overseas influence arm.* Her affiliation with Zhejiang University, an institution flagged for ties to China’s Ministry of State Security.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

OTTAWA/LOS ANGELES — Chris Meyer of Widefountain returns to question The Bureau on findings from The Quiet Invasion—a landmark timeline investigation into how Vancouver became a beachhead for transnational organized crime and Chinese hybrid warfare. What began in the late 1980s as low-profile infiltration by Chinese Triads has evolved into a full-spectrum crisis involving encrypted telecoms, fentanyl superlabs, and political access reaching Canada’s highest offices. In this episode, Meyer and Sam Cooper discuss the range of findings, including Canadian vulnerabilities now believed to be of deep concern to the U.S. government.For example, one firm in a cluster of Vancouver-based encrypted communications companies—linked to Mexican cartels, Hezbollah narco-terror networks, and PRC-affiliated clients, and flagged by U.S. agencies—was found to share an address with a chemical import business. That company received at least 85 tons of precursor chemicals used in the production of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and MDMA. The shipments coincided with the early explosion of fentanyl overdoses across Canada—and what Five Eyes enforcement experts now identify as a dual-threat: a tech front shielding cartel and Chinese actors, while facilitating the chemical backbone of the opioid crisis.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

In a riveting discussion, Chris Meyer, a researcher at WideFountain focusing on China's political culture, unpacks the Chinese Communist Party's intricate strategies for infiltrating North America. He connects the fentanyl crisis to historical policies from Deng Xiaoping's era, revealing how corruption and organized crime became tools for geopolitical disruption. The conversation delves into the rise of powerful narcotics syndicates, their ties to Beijing, and the historical interplay between drug trafficking and state power, all while linking Vancouver's port as a crucial juncture.

Adam Zivo, an independent journalist and columnist for the National Post, shares his firsthand experiences from Jerusalem amid the escalating war. Surprisingly calm in Israel, he reveals a public increasingly focused on Iran as the main adversary rather than Gaza. Zivo discusses potential U.S. military involvement and the dramatic shift in Israeli sentiment toward confronting Iran's regime. He provides insights into the complex dynamics of the conflict, the resilience of locals during protests, and the implications of these emerging strategies.

In this episode, Sam Cooper sits down with Jason James of BNN to examine The Bureau's months-long investigation into the convergence of Chinese state-backed fentanyl networks, Mexican cartels, and Iranian proxy groups. The conversation revisits key findings from Wilful Blindness (2021), which first exposed how Vancouver’s port and economy were exploited as gateways for China’s transnational narcotics and money laundering operations.Together, Sam and Jason unpack why U.S. authorities are now publicly affirming the very networks and vulnerabilities previously dismissed in Canada—and why, despite mounting evidence, a bloc within Canadian politics and media continues to fiercely deny the scope of the threat.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

Sam welcomes back Chris Meyer from Wide Fountain to break down The Bureau’s explosive reporting with retired DEA agent Don Im—and the chilling implications of what Im and other U.S. experts describe as a “reverse Opium War.”They trace the roots of Beijing’s alleged silent role in a vast narcotics-finance system: a web of Triads, Communist Party actors, and Western enablers laundering drug proceeds through legitimate trade. From fentanyl warehouses in Vancouver to encrypted cash auctions on WeChat, this is a global operation—sophisticated, deliberate, and devastating.Chris and Sam explore how Donald Trump’s trade war exposed fractures in a covert global economy—and why emerging signals from within China suggest Xi Jinping’s grip on power may be weakening. As the West confronts the mounting toll of fentanyl, Chris calls for a bipartisan reckoning: no more trade without accountability—and reparations.This isn’t just a narco story. It’s a story of power, profit, politics—and a clash of civilizations.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

Welcome back to The Bureau. Today, we bring you a special cross-border collaboration—linking explosive findings from rural Maine to revelations inside Vancouver’s shadow economy.Joining me is Steve Robinson, the investigative editor who got the ball rolling on a major story tying an illegal marijuana operation in Maine to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department—Beijing’s foreign influence and intelligence arm. Steve’s reporting for The Maine Wire—later advanced by the Daily Caller News Foundation—traces how a so-called community group in New York City, the Sijiu Association, maintains close ties to the Chinese Consulate and has pledged financial support to United Front projects.These findings echo what The Bureau has uncovered in Canada, where United Front operatives have used legalization as cover for a sprawling cannabis export and laundering network. In Vancouver, Toronto, and remote parts of British Columbia and Ontario especially, United Front-linked triads have quietly consolidated legal cannabis licenses, exploited illegal migrant labor, and shipped massive volumes of marijuana to the United States and Japan, with inroads to Europe too—laundering the proceeds back through Canadian banks.In this episode, Steve and I will compare notes, connect the dots, and expose how these networks—rooted in state-directed influence and organized crime—are reshaping the underground economy across North America, just as FBI scrutiny intensifies.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

In this special episode, investigative Sinologist Chris Meyer of Wide Fountain joins The Bureau to dissect a deeply troubling picture emerging from our reporting—one that places Canada at the center of a global narcotics and money laundering operation with ties to Chinese intelligence.At the heart of the conversation: Chi Lap Tse, also known as Sam Gor, or “The Third Son”—the elusive boss of a transnational criminal organization trafficking fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, ketamine, methamphetamine and cannabis globally into the Americas, using Canada as a production, transshipment and money laundering hub for China. Based on assessments of The Bureau’s multiple investigations, including DEA and RCMP intelligence, and his research into Chinese history, Meyer argues that Tse and his “Big Circle Boys” associates are not just drug traffickers—but state-trained commanders whose operations benefit, and in some cases are subtly directed by, the Chinese Communist Party.We revisit my recent exposé on a mysterious 30-acre estate in B.C.’s Columbia Valley—just steps from the U.S. border—tied to Tse, a senior Chinese security figure, United Front-linked mining and chemical interests, and convicted Sam Gor narcotics traffickers like Ye Long Yong. According to RCMP sources, the property has been flagged for cross-border helicopter smuggling, association to high-level money laundering, cannabis, and a nexus of geopolitical friction between Ottawa and Washington.Meyer connects the dots between Canada’s exploitation by United Front mafias and those that architected their global operations in southern China, where Xi Jinping’s backers wield tremendous regional influence that has captured the balance of power in Beijing, according to Wide Fountain’s reports.The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

In this podcast discussion with Jason James, I break down Prime Minister Mark Carney’s highly cynical—yet highly successful—election campaign, and explore the implications of three major recent investigations by The Bureau:* A deeper dive into Chinese Communist Party operations targeting Canada’s Parliament, including new details on threats against Conservative candidate Joseph Tay and his family in Hong Kong. (Recall that the Liberal Party previously turned a blind eye to Chinese secret police targeting of MP Michael Chong’s relatives in Hong Kong.)* The United Front’s quiet takeover of Canada’s legal cannabis market, using licensed grow-ops and brokerage houses as fronts for laundering and trafficking.* The DEA’s frustrations after being stonewalled in a 40-kilogram carfentanil seizure case in Toronto—an investigation with suspected links to Chinese and Pakistani transnational threat networks. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe

TAIWAN — The HIMARS roar that echoed off the coastal mountains of southern Taiwan this week was more than a weapons test. It was a declaration of deterrence.From their perch at Jiupeng military base—where steep green ridges descend toward the Pacific—Taiwanese forces fired the U.S.-made rocket artillery system in a live-fire display designed to show how the island is transforming itself into a fortress of modern asymmetric warfare. The Taiwanese unit conducting the test had trained with U.S. forces in Oklahoma in 2024, and this week’s exercise marked the first time they demonstrated their proficiency with HIMARS on home soil.The HIMARS platform—demonstrated in footage provided to The Bureau from Taiwan Plus—signals a decisive shift toward a mobile, nimble defensive force designed to face overwhelming scale. Unlike fixed missile sites or air bases—prime targets expected to be destroyed within hours of a PLA first-wave assault—truck-mounted HIMARS units can slip into position, launch a strike, and quickly vanish into Taiwan’s jungle-thick terrain and cliffside roads. These launchers are meant to hide, hit, and move—relying on camouflage, speed, and the natural topography of the island to stay alive and strike again.This transformation had been quietly underway for years. In September 2023, The Bureau met with Taiwanese military strategists and international journalists at a closed-door roundtable in Taipei. Among them was a Ukrainian defense consultant—invited to share hard-won battlefield lessons from Kyiv’s resistance. The strategist told the group that the most crucial lesson for Taiwan was psychological: to instill in citizens and soldiers alike the will to prepare for aggression that seems impossible and illogical, before it arrives. “You must believe the worst can happen,” the Ukraine vet said.That same week in Taipei, Taiwan’s then-Foreign Minister Joseph Wu made the case directly in an interview:“There's a growing consensus among the key analysts in the United States and also in Taiwan that war is not inevitable and the war is not imminent,” Wu said. “And we have been making significant investment in our own defense—not just increasing our military budget, but also engaging serious military reforms, in the sense of asymmetric strategy and asymmetric capability.”That principle now guides Taiwan’s evolving force posture. The May 12 HIMARS test—launching precision-guided rockets into a Pacific exclusion zone—was the first public demonstration of the mobile artillery system since the U.S. delivered the first batch in late 2024. With a range of 300 kilometers, HIMARS provides not only mobility but standoff power, allowing Taiwan’s forces to strike amphibious staging areas, beachheads, and ships from hardened inland positions. Lockheed Martin engineers observed the drills, which were broadcast across Taiwanese news networks as both a military signal and psychological campaign.The live-fire exercise also marked the debut of the Land Sword II, a domestically developed surface-to-air missile system designed to counter diverse aerial threats, including cruise missiles, aircraft, and drones. Land Sword II adds a mobile, all-weather air defense layer to Taiwan’s increasingly dense multi-domain network. By deploying it alongside HIMARS, Taiwan demonstrated its commitment to building overlapping shields—striking at invading forces while protecting its launch platforms from aerial suppression.But these new missile systems are only the tip of the spear.Taiwan’s military has quietly abandoned the vestiges of a Cold War posture centered on fleet battles and long-range missile parity with the mainland. Defense officials now concede that attempts to match Beijing plane-for-plane or ship-for-ship are a dead end. Instead, inspired by the “porcupine” concept outlined by retired U.S. Marines and intelligence officials, Taiwan is remaking itself into a smart, lethal archipelago fortress—one where unmanned drones, dispersed missile cells, and underground fiber-linked command posts neutralize China’s numerical advantage.Wu, who now serves as Secretary-General of Taiwan’s National Security Council, has been one of the doctrine’s most consistent advocates. In his writings and interviews, Wu points to Ukraine’s ability to hold off a vastly superior invader through mobility, deception, and smart munitions. “We are not seeking parity. We are seeking survivability,” he wrote in Foreign Affairs. “And if we survive, we win.”A New Arsenal of Ideas: From Silicon Valley to the Taiwan StraitIf Ukraine showed the value of agile, off-the-shelf technologies on the battlefield, Taiwan seems poised to go a step further—by integrating cutting-edge systems developed not by defense contractors, but by Silicon Valley insurgents.Among the most closely watched innovators is Palmer Luckey, the former Oculus founder whose defense firm, Anduril Industries, is quietly revolutionizing battlefield autonomy. Through its Dive Technologies division and flagship Ghost and Bolt drone platforms, Anduril builds AI-guided aerial and underwater drones capable of swarming enemy ships, submarines, and even mines—exactly the kinds of systems Taiwan could deploy along its maritime approaches and chokepoints.Luckey, who visited Japan and South Korea in early 2025 to brief U.S. allies on asymmetric AI warfare, has warned that in a Taiwan invasion scenario, the side with better autonomous targeting and tracking could determine victory before a single human-fired missile is launched.“The PLA is betting big on AI,” he told Business Insider. “If Taiwan and the U.S. don’t match that, we’re done.”Much of this strategy finds intellectual backing in The Boiling Moat, a 2024 strategy volume edited by former U.S. National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger. The book proposes a multi-layered defense of Taiwan that includes hardened ground troops, swarming drones, portable anti-ship missiles, and AI battlefield networking.Pottinger argues that Taiwan must become “the toughest target on earth”—a phrase now common among Taiwanese officers briefing American delegations. Speaking to NPR last year, Pottinger noted that Taiwan’s survival doesn’t rest on matching China’s power, but on “convincing Beijing that the price of conquest will be far too high to bear.”The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe