Sam Cooper

As polls tighten in Canada’s high-stakes federal election—one increasingly defined by reports of Chinese state interference—a controversial Toronto diaspora group tied to past efforts to topple former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole has resurfaced, decrying what it calls a disregard for favoured Chinese Canadian voices in candidate selection.

At a press conference in Markham yesterday, the Chinese Canadian Conservative Association (CCCA) accused both the Liberal and Conservative parties of bypassing diaspora input and “directly appointing candidates without consulting community groups or even party members.”

In what reads as a carefully coded message to the Chinese diaspora across Canada, Mandarin-language reports covering the event stated that the group “stressed at the media meeting that people should think rationally and vote carefully,” and urged “all Chinese people to actively participate and vote for the candidate they approve of—rather than the party.”

The CCCA’s latest press conference—surprising in both tone and timing—came just weeks after political pressure forced the resignation of Liberal MP Paul Chiang, following reports that he had allegedly threatened his Conservative opponent, Joseph Tay—now the party’s candidate in Don Valley North—and suggested to Chinese-language journalists that Tay could be handed over to the Toronto consulate for a bounty.

Chiang, who had been backed by Prime Minister Mark Carney, stepped down amid growing concern from international NGOs and an RCMP review.

One of the CCCA’s leading voices is a Markham city councillor who campaigned for Paul Chiang in 2021 against the Conservatives, and later sought the Conservative nomination in Markham against Joseph Tay. While the group claims to represent Conservative-aligned diaspora interests, public records and media coverage show that it backed Paul Chiang again in 2025 and is currently campaigning for Shaun Chen, the Liberal candidate in the adjacent Scarborough North riding.

The Toronto Sun reported today that new polling by Leger for Postmedia shows Mark Carney’s Liberals polling at 47 percent in the Greater Toronto Area—just three points ahead of Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives at 44 percent. In most Canadian elections, this densely populated region proves decisive in determining who forms government in Ottawa.

In a statement that appeared to subtly align with Beijing’s strategic messaging, the group warned voters:

“At today’s press conference, we called on all Canadian voters: please think rationally and vote carefully. Do not support parties or candidates that attempt to divide society, launch attacks or undermine important international relations, especially against countries such as India and China that have important global influence.”

In a 2024 review of foreign interference, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) warned that nomination contests in Canada remain highly vulnerable to manipulation by state-backed diaspora networks, particularly those run by Chinese and Indian diplomats.

The report found that these networks have “directed or influenced Canadian political candidates,” with efforts targeting riding-level nominations seen as a strategic entry point for foreign influence.

The Chinese Canadian Conservative Association first attracted national attention in the wake of the 2021 federal election, when it held a press conference blaming then-Conservative leader Erin O’Toole’s “anti-China rhetoric” for the party’s poor showing in ridings with large Chinese Canadian populations.

At that event, CCCA’s lead spokesperson—a York Region councillor and three-time former Conservative candidate—openly defended Beijing’s position on Taiwan and Canada’s diplomatic crisis over the “two Michaels,” claiming China’s detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor only occurred because “Canada started the war.”

The councillor also criticized Canada’s condemnation of China’s human rights abuses, saying such statements “alienate Chinese voters.”

The group’s views—repeatedly echoed in Chinese-language media outlets close to the PRC—resonate with talking points promoted by the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, a political influence operation run by Beijing that seeks to mobilize ethnic Chinese communities abroad in support of Party objectives.

Shortly after denouncing O’Toole’s China policy, the CCCA publicly endorsed Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown to replace him—a candidate known for cultivating strong relationships with United Front-linked groups. Brown gave a speech in 2022 at an event co-organized by the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations (CTCCO)—a group repeatedly cited in Canadian national security reporting for its alignment with PRC political messaging and its close working relationship with the Chinese consulate in Toronto.

CTCCO also maintains ties with Peter Yuen, a former Toronto Police Deputy Chief who was selected as Mark Carney’s Liberal candidate in the riding of Markham–Unionville. As first revealed by The Bureau, Yuen joined a 2015 Ontario delegation to Beijing to attend a massive military parade hosted by President Xi Jinping and the People’s Liberation Army, commemorating the CCP’s victory over Japan in the Second World War. The delegation included senior CTCCO leaders and Ontario political figures who, in 2017, helped advocate for the establishment of Nanjing Massacre Memorial Day and a monument in Toronto—a movement widely promoted by the Chinese consulate and supported by figures from CTCCO and the Chinese Freemasons of Toronto, both of which have been cited in United Front reporting.

Yuen also performed in 2017 at diaspora events affiliated with the United Front Work Department, standing beside CTCCO leader Wei Cheng Yi while singing a patriotic song about his dedication to China—as the Chinese Consul General looked on.

Sam Cooper

A former NYPD sergeant was sentenced to 18 months in prison this week for his role in a shadowy Chinese government operation that sought to coerce a political exile in New Jersey to return to the mainland. The conviction of Michael McMahon marks the first successful prosecution of a current or former American law enforcement officer accused of profiting from Beijing’s covert repatriation campaign, known as Operation Fox Hunt—a global manhunt that has ensnared operatives from Vancouver and Toronto to Los Angeles.

McMahon, 57, was convicted alongside two Chinese-American co-conspirators, Zhu Yong and Congying Zheng, who were previously sentenced to 24 and 16 months in prison, respectively. The trio was found guilty of interstate stalking and acting as unregistered agents of the People’s Republic of China, after a federal jury heard how they aided Beijing’s secret police—using Chinese businessmen and hired thugs based in the Tri-State area and California—to track and psychologically terrorize their target: a former Wuhan official named Xu Jin.

While McMahon’s sentencing concludes one legal chapter, The Bureau’s investigation into court records and national security sources reveals a far broader and ongoing web of espionage, coercion, and transnational repression—directed by senior Chinese Communist Party officials and bolstered by diaspora operatives and criminal proxies across North America.

McMahon and his family have fiercely denied his culpability as a tool of China’s secret police, insisting he was an unwitting pawn in a clandestine war that U.S. authorities failed to warn domestic citizens—including former law enforcement officers—about.

In private messages to The Bureau, following months of in-depth reporting into sealed court documents, McMahon’s wife, Martha Byrne, emphasized their belief that he had done nothing wrong.

“My husband, Michael McMahon, committed no crime,” she wrote. “There’s plenty of media to expose this grave injustice on my family.” She added a stark warning directed at law enforcement and intelligence communities: “It’s extremely important you use your platform to warn private investigators and local law enforcement of these patterns. Our government did nothing to warn us, and they knew my husband was being used. They knew since as early as 2015/16 these Chinese actors were using PIs. They put our family in danger and in turn the security of the entire country.”

But the sentencing judge in Brooklyn emphasized McMahon’s witting participation—and the fact that he profited from the scheme.

The case centered on Xu Jin, a former municipal official from Wuhan who fled China with his wife in 2010, seeking refuge in the United States. By 2015, his face appeared on a China Daily “most wanted” list—alongside dozens of Canada-based targets—part of Beijing’s sweeping Fox Hunt campaign to repatriate ex-officials accused of corruption, dissidents, and political rivals of President Xi Jinping. While Chinese authorities accused Xu of accepting bribes, he maintained he was not a criminal but a political target caught in a purge masked as anti-graft enforcement.

By 2017, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security escalated its efforts, dispatching emissaries, threatening Xu’s relatives in China, and launching a North American rendition operation. That’s when Zhu Yong, a 66-year-old Chinese national living in New York, hired McMahon—then working as a private investigator—to locate Xu.

Tapping law enforcement databases and traditional surveillance tactics, McMahon began tracking Xu and his family. The key break came in April 2017, when Xu’s elderly father—who had recently suffered a brain hemorrhage—was flown to the U.S. by the PRC, accompanied by a government doctor. His role: deliver a threatening message in person to his son. If Xu refused to return to China, his family would suffer the consequences.

These same tactics have been deployed in Canada, according to a January 2022 “Special Report” by the Privy Council Office on Chinese Fox Hunt operations, obtained by The Bureau.

McMahon surveilled the father’s arrival at a New Jersey home, then followed him to Xu Jin’s residence. Within days, the Chinese team had the address they needed.

Soon after, Congying Zheng and another associate showed up at Xu’s front door. They pounded on it, peered through the windows, and left a note that read: “If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right. That’s the end of this matter!”

By that point, McMahon’s role had deepened. Text messages recovered by federal investigators confirmed that he understood the objective of the operation. In one exchange with another investigator he had contracted, McMahon acknowledged that the goal was to repatriate the target to China “so they could prosecute him.”

After providing the address of Xu Jin, McMahon told his surveillance partner that he was “waiting for a call” to determine next steps. The partner replied, “Yeah. From NJ State Police about an abduction,” to which McMahon responded: “Lol.”

He later suggested further intimidation tactics to a Chinese co-conspirator, advising: “Park outside his home and let him know we are there.” According to prosecutors, McMahon also conducted background research on the victim’s daughter, including details about her university residence and academic major.

In total, McMahon was paid over $19,000 for his role in the PRC-directed operation. To obscure the origin of the funds, he deposited the payments into his son’s bank account—an arrangement prosecutors noted he had never used with any other client.

Court filings in the case traced troubling connections northward—to Canada—where suspects linked to Fujian-based organized crime networks, long known to Canadian police and senior elected officials, have been under investigation since at least 2022. Yet despite mounting intelligence, no charges have been laid.

The same Interpol “red notice” that named Xu also listed Chinese nationals living in Canada. According to Canadian law enforcement sources who spoke to The Bureau, multiple individuals now targeted by Fox Hunt reside in Vancouver and Toronto—cities with large mainland Chinese communities and a documented history of interference concerns.

“In Canada, we just knock on doors and talk to people,” one RCMP officer told The Bureau. “In the U.S., they go in and make arrests.” The officer pointed to a critical gap in Canadian law: the absence of a foreign agent registry—one of the FBI’s key legal tools in dismantling Fox Hunt cells on U.S. soil.

Beyond McMahon and Zhu Yong, the FBI investigation revealed a sprawling web of operatives functioning as “cutouts”—deniable intermediaries who provide a buffer between Chinese intelligence and the dirty work of coercion.

Even as the New Jersey operation began to falter—after Xu’s ailing father reportedly resisted efforts to pressure his son and Chinese operatives grew wary of U.S. law enforcement closing in—officials in Beijing leveraged McMahon’s surveillance to identify a new target: Xu’s daughter, a university student in Northern California. A second Fox Hunt pressure campaign was soon launched.

In California, the Ministry of Public Security dispatched Rong Jing—a PRC national and permanent U.S. resident—who had operated with apparent impunity across the U.S. as a bounty hunter for Beijing’s global rendition program.

This time, Rong sought to hire a new American private investigator.

On May 22, 2017, Rong met with the PI at a restaurant in Los Angeles. He didn’t know the man was an undercover FBI informant—and agreed to let their four-hour conversation be recorded.

When Rong proposed video surveillance on Xu’s daughter, the informant began to ask probing questions. Rong opened up—not only about the mission, but about the entire Fox Hunt apparatus behind it.

Asked how payment would be arranged, Rong said it would depend on what the PRC decided to do once the daughter was located. “Say, if the next step somebody asks me to catch [Xu’s] daughter,” he speculated. “When we get there, they wouldn’t feel comfortable to arrest her… So we need to be there on their behalf.”

According to Rong, successful Fox Hunt collaborators could submit for reward money—paid out inside China and split with U.S.-based operatives. The funds, he said, were controlled by Party officials, with the Communist Party overseeing all payments.

Rong contrasted his own freelance status with another class of agents—PRC “lobbyists” sent abroad as salaried civil servants. These operatives, he said, traveled under false names and work visas, sometimes posing as academics or trade representatives. Their job was to persuade overseas Chinese to return “voluntarily.”

“These lobbyists explain the advantages of returning to the PRC,” Rong said, euphemistically.

And then he pointed north.

Rong told the informant he had personally met one such PRC lobbyist in Canada. Though he did not name the individual, he described the tactic: use false identities, operate under official cover, and insulate the PRC government from any legal risk.

As the conversation turned back to Xu’s daughter, the informant asked the most pressing question: would she be safe?

“If there was an accident,” Rong replied, “in truth, you could claim that you were just investigating her.”