Commentary
In more innocent times, Vancouver, British Columbia, was a natural landing point for family wealth from Hong Kong and China as they transited their funds to buy homes, real estate, and other things. Some of this was done lawfully, some, maybe not as much.
Growing up in Seattle, I had plenty of Asian friends who would casually, and innocently, mention these family transactions. It meant little to me at the time; back then life was simpler, a sweet and innocent time.
More recently though, the flavor and nature of these financial movements has taken a much darker, strategic, and sinister nature. I’ve been in Vancouver multiple times in the past few years, and it has been very hard for me to not run into imperious Han inner-circle elite in their expensive cars tending to their nice homes. They stand out; so must I, because of the way they immediately take notice of me.
We talk about what each of us is doing in Vancouver. Are they buying these homes as the vanguard of an invasion or as an insurance policy and landing point if the CCP collapses? The answer is clear—yes.
The Big Circle Boys and the BC Casinos
Sam Cooper and other Canadian reporters have done heroic work documenting the hard turn of the legacy money-flow into Vancouver from Hong Kong and China. The Big Circle Boys, a long-standing, organized crime element from Hong Kong, has been transformed into a violent, militant, and essentially para-military extension of the CCP.
Recently, the “victimless” crime nature of these cash movements has changed as violent gun battles and murders have occurred. It’s no longer simply about families sneaking money into the country to buy a second home. Now, it’s about fentanyl—which the CCP is using as a new “Agent Orange” to de-populate the United States and Canada en masse—and other drugs. It’s about guns, real estate,
laundering large cash transactions, and influence operations.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has even
cited terrorist links. The policy agency’s “Sidewinder” report from 1997 sounded a klaxon on this topic. Not officially released, the report was the equivalent of the more contemporary Snowden leak of classified information in U.S. circles.
Elmer Yuen, a former resident of Hong Kong and now a leading advocate of defeating the CCP, confirms the transformation of the Big Circle organization into an extension of CCP power and influence.
If you want to launder large amounts of cash wired into a country, there is almost no better way than a casino, and the Big Circle Boys seem to have a controlling interest of the entire casino environment in British Columbia.
Simply put, casinos are hubs of corruption.
Curious Geographic Coincidences
Coincidently, and there are no coincidences in this business, a group with the nondescript name of “
Adbusters” is based in Vancouver. It’s also the same group that was, and perhaps still is, planning a “siege of Washington, D.C.” to disrupt the U.S. election.
The Chinese Progressive Association also has a large footprint in Vancouver, a group that has been tied directly to the CCP. The
association itself has been tied to Black Lives Matter (BLM). CCP-related media and personalities such as
Chen Weihua have referenced a relationship and interest in BLM and Antifa. In previous articles for The Epoch Times, communism expert
Trevor Loudon has magnificently laid out the architecture of these organizations’ web of activities, pointing out Adbusters’s possible relationship to U.S. domestic unrest.
The organization Riot Kitchen in Seattle has been a proxy of a proxy, acting as the Seattle-based logistical support element of interstate violence. A
presidential issuance on Sept. 2, followed shortly by a Department of Justice memo, identified Seattle and Portland as hubs of violent activity and established the theme of the failure of mayors and governors to provide “equal protection” to the citizenry—an incredibly important legal foundation of our Constitution.
So what’s the point with all these coincidences? In my career, I’ve seen a truth: One should never assume that the intelligence and law enforcement resources of the United States are looking in the right direction, at the right time, for the right evidence, on the right issue. Obvious coincidences often aren’t being looked at. I’ve seen incredible volumes of collection data discarded because they weren’t on the priorities list to be reviewed.
Influence Operations
Whether talking about al-Qaeda extremists or Chinese influence operations, the fuel of the black arts is the same: cash.In the old days, the U.S. Intelligence Community and the State Department under the legendary Dulles Brothers brought this to a high art form. I would argue that we were a force for good in the constant bare-knuckle alleyway brawl with the Soviet Union in the earlier days of the Cold War.
The Soviets wanted to play tough, and we showed them we could also, often outmaneuvering them with a better argument, some gloves-off work, and yes, sometimes cash. As time went on, the Vietnam experience soured and distracted us, and then with the Church Committee hearings, this high art form for good was lost.
A more positive and uplifting representation of the return of this high art form of intelligence and law enforcement strategy for good was the magnificent work in shutting down CCP interference in the Taiwanese elections in January. After a quick strategy huddle, a law was quickly framed, passed, and enforced—“
The Anti-Infiltration Law”—and Taiwan moved with alacrity to shut down CCP money on the street.
Han Kuo, the CCP-funded opponent, went from hero to zero and now has been thrown out of office. Bravo to President Tsai Ing-wen—she and her staff executed flawlessly a blocking and tackling model on how to protect democracy from CCP election meddling.
Pivoting US Government Capabilities
The answer is simple: To mobilize U.S. federal resources, secretaries of the departments and heads of agencies must reorder the priorities lists. It’s time for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to démarche Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. David MacNaughton and time for Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf to pivot, focus, and intensify resources to ascertain the meaning of these coincidences.
Attorney General William Barr reprioritized the
focus of the Department of Justice in July—China is now job No. 1. It takes a little while to turn the ship of the U.S. government, but things are now happening, and the U.S. government is strategically disassembling the CCP activities in the United States.
Canada and the U.S. government should exercise their historic relationships and friendships to more diligently address the curious, high-cash operations enabled by CCP associated groups in Vancouver.
Col. (Ret.) John Mills is a national security professional with service in five eras: Cold War, Peace Dividend, War on Terror, World in Chaos, and now, Great Power Competition. He is the former director of cybersecurity policy, strategy, and international affairs at the Department of Defense. @ColonelRETJOHN
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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