The Pacific coastal metropolis, famous for its gleaming glass towers set against forested mountain peaks, isn’t merely concealing a toxic node of global narco-laundering. It has also become known as the “Dubai of the West” among transnational crime investigators, serving as a key encryption technology hub for various shadowy companies tied to Chinese Triads, Mexican cartels, and Iranian state-sponsored mafias and terror financiers

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — In a long-running legal effort to curb transnational money laundering believed to be fueling North America’s deadly fentanyl trade, the British Columbia Civil Forfeiture Office has secured a procedural victory in its pursuit of 14 Vancouver properties linked to an accused Chinese underworld financier, Paul King Jin.

Jin and his associates in Vancouver and Toronto — tied to “The Company” cartel and the notorious, U.S.-sanctioned Triad leader “Broken Tooth Koi,” according to RCMP sources — have drawn increasing interest from American enforcement and intelligence agencies in recent years.

Despite surmounting a legal hurdle in Jin’s case, Canada’s broader struggle to bring such figures to justice speaks to deep systemic vulnerabilities, enforcement experts say. Meanwhile, the United States grows more impatient with its northern neighbor’s susceptibility to global narcotics trafficking.

David Asher, a senior financial crime investigator in President Trump’s first administration, who recently credited The Bureau’s investigations into fentanyl trafficking networks at a security conference in Vancouver, says Triads in Toronto and Vancouver are “command and control” for laundering warehouses of cash stockpiled across North America by Mexican cartels that distribute toxic opioids for Chinese mafias that provide the precursors.

Citing a July 2024 memo from Asher, CBC reported today that the memo is reportedly now circulating among Trump’s transition team. Asher argues “Canada should be making substantive, systemic changes,” including implementing anti-racketeering laws and sharing intelligence with Washington on Canada-based fentanyl networks, CBC reported.

Asher’s memo does not pull punches.

“The key is to attack Cartel and Triad finances by targeting their complicit financial institutions,” it says, adding there is “massive money laundering” through a specific Canadian bank.

On paper, the B.C. government’s recent win seems straightforward: In September 2024, the B.C. Supreme Court effectively sided with the Director of Civil Forfeiture, allowing the province to proceed with a case to forfeit roughly $9.5 million in Vancouver-area real estate.

The 14 properties, the government asserts, served as conduits for illicit proceeds — illegal gaming, underground banking, and laundering activities tied to Mr. Jin’s network and, by extension, a web of international criminal enterprises, including Triads and diaspora banking brokers connected to cartels spanning Asia and the Americas.

But this portfolio is only part of the picture. The forfeiture claim notes that after Jin was banned from B.C. casinos, he established illegal gaming houses which, according to official filings, generated more than $32 million in net profit over just four months in 2015. These gambling dens formed another key node in the broader ecosystem of cash-based offenses believed to be driving the surge in dangerous synthetic drugs throughout North America.

The legal drama in B.C.’s latest claim — the fourth forfeiture suit against Jin in three years — began in November 2022. Everwell Knight Limited, a China-incorporated entity registered in Hong Kong that holds mortgages on the 14 contested properties, attempted to have the government’s forfeiture claim dismissed. Everwell argued that the Director of Civil Forfeiture had failed to meet procedural standards. The Vancouver lawyer representing Everwell invoked the Canadian Charter of Rights — a common strategic defense in Canadian money laundering cases.

In April 2023, the Director of Civil Forfeiture responded with an application for judgment by default against Mr. Jin. By failing to file a defense, the Director argued, Mr. Jin effectively conceded key allegations.

This fourth claim also highlights an absurd game of cat and mouse between Jin and the Director.

“Counsel for the Director received a phone call from a lawyer who advised he may be acting for P. Jin with respect to civil forfeiture matters,” the Director’s April 2023 application says. “Since that communication, the Director’s counsel has not received any further communications from that lawyer or from any other lawyer purporting to act for P. Jin in this action.”

The court was asked to deem that Mr. Jin had admitted essential facts, including his true role behind Everwell, YSHJ Investment Holding Ltd., and JYSH Investment Ltd. — entities allegedly held through Jin’s niece as nominee owners.

Everwell, YSHJ Investment Holding Ltd., and JYSH Investment Ltd. have all filed defenses denying any wrongdoing.

Key to B.C.’s case is the allegation that YSHJ and JYSH bought Vancouver properties and soon after, the Hong Kong-based Everwell registered mortgages and assigned rents against the units, suggesting a clever scheme to launder funds via rent and mortgage payments.

“The mortgages held by Everwell against the real property are not legitimate mortgages and were used by the defendants to launder proceeds of crime,” B.C.’s lawsuit says.

But from a broader perspective, B.C.’s procedural win may resemble a Pyrrhic victory. Civil forfeiture often serves as a fallback in Canada because prosecuting sophisticated international money launderers remains daunting. High-profile criminal cases — including the RCMP’s “E-Pirate” probe into the sprawling Richmond, B.C.-based Silver International underground bank, allegedly linked to Mr. Jin and his partner, Jian Jun Zhu — collapsed amid onerous disclosure rules and the immense challenge of translating millions of intercepted communications.

A B.C. special prosecutor’s review of the related “E-Nationalize” investigation, which focused on Mr. Jin’s networks, similarly fell apart. The review cited “considerable dispute” over police-gathered material — including over two million communications needing Chinese translation — and highlighted legislative gaps that make it hard to convict Jin.

Civil forfeiture, with its lower burden of proof, can freeze and seize suspicious assets. Yet it does not carry the moral weight or deterrent punch of a criminal sentence. The current case spotlights Jin’s alleged laundering through B.C. casinos and Silver International — the now-defunct underground bank run by Mr. Zhu, who was killed in a 2020 shooting at a Japanese restaurant in Richmond. An RCMP source said that night in the restaurant, senior Toronto-area figures linked to Tse Chi Lop’s “The Company” cartel were present alongside Jin and Zhu, illustrating both the proximity of violence to Jin’s affairs and his apparent ties to Tse’s networks.

According to a report from the Financial Action Task Force, a G7 anti-money laundering initiative, Silver International serviced Asian, Middle Eastern, and Mexican organized crime groups, laundering about $1 billion a year globally. The bank, one of numerous similar outfits in Vancouver and Toronto, was connected to Chinese underground bankers in diaspora communities across Latin America, as well as hundreds of related bank accounts in China, according to the RCMP’s case.

This underscores Vancouver’s role as a nexus in a global scheme that U.S. authorities say directly contributes to the fentanyl crisis ravaging American cities. The Pacific coastal metropolis, famous for its gleaming glass towers set against forested mountain peaks, isn’t merely concealing a toxic node of global narco-laundering. It has also become known as the “Dubai of the West” among transnational crime investigators, serving as a key encryption technology hub for various shadowy companies tied to Chinese Triads, Mexican cartels, and Iranian state-sponsored mafias and terror financiers, as Canada’s case against RCMP intelligence mole Cameron Ortis revealed.

As one senior U.S. law enforcement source familiar with DEA probes into Triad leader Tse Chi Lop — said to control “The Company” network and connected to both Paul Jin and Silver International — explained, “Canada’s lenient laws make it an attractive market.” The source added: “If someone gets caught with a couple of kilos of fentanyl in Canada, the likelihood of facing a 25-year sentence is very low.”

Jin, once targeted by Canada’s most ambitious anti-money laundering efforts, remains unscathed by criminal convictions. Still, Jin’s extensive travels to Mexico, Colombia, and Panama have, according to RCMP sources, led investigators to believe he is leveraging a global network of underground bankers and traffickers. His name surfaces alongside once-dominant figures like Xizhi Li, a Chinese Mexican gangster taken down by the DEA, and Tse Chi Lop, whose arrest in 2021 created a vacuum in major narcotics and money laundering operations.

“Jin has evolved from a local massage parlor manager to someone who has now expanded his business dealings nationally and internationally,” one RCMP source said. “One can surmise that voids are created with the arrests of Li and Tse. And historically speaking, when voids are created, they tend to be filled. The question is: Who is in a position to fill that?”

In recent years Jin was detained and searched by Mexican border officials, the source said. Although he carried nothing substantial beyond a single cannabis gummy and some empty boxes, officials reportedly discovered documents linking him to Vancouver loan-sharking disputes. More tellingly, they found a business card connected to “Broken Tooth Koi,” a Triad leader whose laundering operations stretch from Hong Kong into Canada’s financial systems, as previously documented in filings before the Cullen Commission.

In December 2020 U.S. sanctions highlighted Koi’s links to Beijing.

“Wan Kuok Koi, also commonly known as “Broken Tooth,” is a member of the Communist Party of China’s (CCP) Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference,” the sanctions say, “and is a leader of the 14K Triad, one of the largest Chinese organized criminal organizations in the world that engages in drug trafficking, illegal gambling, racketeering, human trafficking, and a range of other criminal activities.”

“The other piece that will connect to what you are interested in, is [Paul King Jin] had a business card that connects him to Broken Tooth Koi,” the source said. Asked if this indicated Jin was working with ‘The Company’ — a sophisticated Triad-linked entity moving cash worldwide — the source replied, “That would fit.”

“He seems to have stepped into a leadership role,” the source continued. “He has been heading to Central America a lot, and he is barely home anymore.”

The Bureau has not been able to reach Jin for comment through a Vancouver lawyer that represented him at the Cullen Commission.