espionage
EXCLUSIVE: Chinese ‘Cyber Police’ Agent Runs Online Network Helping Illegal Immigrants Flood Into US
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
“We’re allowing an element that is completely beyond our law to be established firmly as a beachhead in the United States of America, and the people of America are going to pay a severe price, much worse than we are paying even now”
A private social network run by a self-identified Chinese government agent provides illegal immigrants with resources to get into the U.S. and evade border authorities, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered.
The American Self-Guided Tour Channel is a Chinese-language group with over 8,000 members on the encrypted instant messaging platform Telegram that serves as both a forum for discussing Chinese illegal immigration and a hub for documents detailing specific routes to the U.S., a DCNF review of the channel found.
Documents in the Telegram channel translated by the DCNF identify U.S. border wall gaps, instruct Chinese nationals on how to answer questions from Border Patrol agents and provide scripts for requesting asylum.
Furthermore, the channel is overseen by an individual who spreads Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, bans accounts who fail to toe the Party line and identifies himself as a Chinese police officer.
“We’re allowing an element that is completely beyond our law to be established firmly as a beachhead in the United States of America, and the people of America are going to pay a severe price, much worse than we are paying even now,” North Carolina Republican Rep. Dan Bishop said after learning about the findings of the DCNF’s investigation.
Customs and Border Protection data shows that the overwhelming majority of the roughly 48,000 Chinese illegal immigrants encountered by U.S. authorities in 2024 have been single adults — and experts warn that “military-aged males” make up the lion’s share.
Bishop described the 1,100% spike in Chinese illegal immigrants since fiscal year 2022 as “historically unprecedented,” and told the DCNF that the inner workings of China’s human smuggling networks have largely remained a mystery to lawmakers up until now.
“Even people, like me, who’ve seen a lot of it have not yet totally come to grips with the sort of depth that you’ve described,” said Bishop, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee’s Oversight, Investigations and Accountability subcommittee.
The DCNF discovered the American Self-Guided Tour Channel and several related Telegram groups facilitating Chinese illegal immigration after analyzing a Chinese illegal immigrant’s abandoned cell phone, which was found near the California-Mexico border by a San Diego man in January 2024.
Telegram did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
‘Try Alternate Identities’
Through a months-long review of the American Self-Guided Tour Channel, the DCNF discovered that the group contains documents instructing Chinese nationals on how to navigate the U.S. immigration system, including scripts for claiming asylum and answering questions from Border Patrol agents.
One document translated by the DCNF advises those wishing to apply for a green card in the U.S. to “be sure to prepare a story about your persecution in advance.”
Another document provides responses to questions Border Patrol agents may ask in order to establish whether or not an asylum-seeker has a credible fear of persecution from their home country. Under current law, migrants who claim “credible fear” of persecution can seek asylum in the U.S.
“Even if moving would be inconvenient, can you live safely elsewhere in the country?” reads one of the hypothetical questions.
“No, because the situation I’m facing is nationwide,” the suggested answer states. “Even if I move to another place, I’ll be under threat just as before.”
Another post provides templates on how to craft asylum claims based on political, religious, racial, sexual and even gender persecution, despite women comprising only a small fraction of Chinese illegal immigrants.
“I am [name, ancestral hometown] nationality, I was born on [birthday]. Because I suffered gender-based violence and discrimination in my motherland, I am seeking asylum in [country],” the document’s template on gender persecution states. “My family forced me to marry, they wanted me to marry a man much older than me. When I refused, they beat me and threatened me saying that if I didn’t obey, they’d kill me. After marrying, my husband started physically and mentally abusing me, I was forced to leave my home and live in hiding. I tried seeking help from the local government, but they’re either corrupt or unwilling to help me. If I am forced to return to [motherland], I fear for my life, there I will face more violence and discrimination.”
Documents stored on the channel indicate a relatively sophisticated understanding of the U.S. immigration system, with some featuring intricate flow-charts to map out various potential U.S. immigration pathways.
One such flow-chart suggests that, as a last resort, those who’ve received a deportation order, but lack a passport to return to their countries, may consider starting the immigration process over with a false identity.
“You can try alternate identities, [but] the difficulty is relatively high and Trump may invite you to a meeting with state security agents in the future,” the document states, referring to former President Donald Trump.
‘Crossing Point’
The American Self-Guided Tour Channel also serves as a hub for travel guides facilitating Chinese illegal immigration, some of which identify specific border crossing points between the U.S. and Mexico, the DCNF discovered.
The guides vary in their geographic scope, with some focusing on travel between multiple countries, such as from China to Ecuador, which Rep. Bishop told the DCNF doesn’t require a travel visa for Chinese nationals.
“Essentially without visas, as I understand it, they can fly to Ecuador, and then they have an overland route and come up and come right through the border,” Bishop said.
The Telegram channel’s guides commonly list Quito, Ecuador, and Necocli, Colombia, as the first and last travel locations in South America for Chinese illegal immigrants.
Other guides on the channel provide more detailed advice on how to travel through a single country. One guide for Mexico falls into this category and features a series of Google Map screenshots that chart a path between Tapachula, Mexico and Laredo, Texas.
While most of the guides concern travel through South and Central America, several also focus on where and how to cross the U.S. southern border.
One such document identifies 15 border wall gaps along the southern border, including 12 in California as well as crossing points in Arizona and New Mexico.
This guide also provides Chinese nationals with basic instructions on what to carry and how to make the crossing.
“Take a taxi to a location near the wall crossing point, get out, and head straight in, carrying a few hundred dollars in cash for random contingencies,” the document advises.
The DCNF confirmed the existence of several of the crossing points while visiting the California border in June 2024.
Bill Wells, the mayor of El Cajon, California, told the DCNF that Chinese nationals now constitute a significant portion of crossings near San Diego.
“When I’ve been out at the border, most of my interactions have been with Chinese people,” Wells said. “I’ve come across groups of Chinese people standing on the side of the road in the middle of the night waiting to be picked up. I’ve come across migrant encampments, where there’s 100 or so Chinese people waiting to move on to the next stage, maybe 30 yards from the fence where they just crossed.”
Despite this, Wells told the DCNF that local officials remain in the dark about how the human smuggling networks operate.
“We have no idea,” Wells said. “You would think that something of such major importance to not only the nation, but to municipalities, you would have somebody from the government calling you and saying, ‘Hey, this is what we know. This is what’s going on. This is how it’s going to affect you or not affect you.’”
Wells told the DCNF that he believes Chinese illegal immigration poses a serious national security threat to the U.S. and pointed to multiple sensitive military and public utility sites close to the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego.
“There’s just so much to worry about from a committed enemy,” Wells said.
‘Cyber Police’
The DCNF’s review of the American Self-Guided Tour Channel also discovered that its owner — @wjackcn, or “Jack W” — claims to work as a cyber police officer stationed in China.
“Yes, I am cyber police,” Jack W stated on April 30, 2024, after an account in the channel asked him if he was a cyber police officer.
Cyber police serve China’s Ministry of Public Security by monitoring website content and spreading propaganda, according to federal authorities.
After identifying himself as a cyber police officer, Jack W outlined his policing duties in a post in which described himself as being “responsible for national security affairs, fighting reactionaries and foreign hostile forces.”
Later that day, Jack W directed channel members interested in national security work to apply to China’s premier civilian intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security.
“If you want to work for the Ministry of State Security, please use the method of participating in the National Civil Servant exam,” Jack W told members of the Telegram channel.
Although the DCNF was unable to confirm Jack W’s affiliation with the Ministry of Public Security or Ministry of State Security, a review of the account’s posts found that it promoted Chinese illegal immigration and has banned members for expressing “hurtful opinions towards the motherland.”
In one instance, after a now-deleted account called for the CCP to be overthrown on April 22, 2024, Jack W banned 20 accounts.
The next month, Jack W announced he’d banned multiple accounts who’d criticized Chinese police officers.
“Those who disparaged an Urban Management and Law Enforcement video have already been banned,” Jack W announced on May 20, 2024, referring to a Chinese government agency that the U.S. nonprofit Human Rights Watch has described as a “thuggish para-police” tasked with enforcing non-criminal administrative regulations.
Jack W’s Telegram channel has also promoted CCP propaganda.
On June 4, 2024, the American Self-Guided Tour Channel posted an image of a tank with the caption: “Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the Defeat of the Western-Backed Colour Revolution,” in reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, during which the Chinese government slaughtered as many as 10,000 pro-democracy protesters, according to the former British ambassador to China.
A DCNF review of the Telegram channel also discovered that, in addition to Jack W, several other members have identified themselves as Chinese police officers, military personnel and CCP members.
Rep. Bishop described Chinese illegal immigration as “the most astonishing threat.”
“Chinese nationals presenting at the southern border of the United States were almost unheard of previously,” Bishop told the DCNF.
In May 2024, Bishop chaired the House Homeland Security Committee’s Oversight, Investigations and Accountability subcommittee hearing concerning the approximately 8,000% increase in Chinese illegal immigration the U.S. has experienced since March 2021.
The hearing followed a January 2024 DCNF investigation revealing an internal Customs and Border Protection email showing that the Biden administration dramatically simplified the vetting process for Chinese illegal immigrants in April 2023 by reducing the number of interview questions Border Patrol agents are required to ask from roughly 40 down to just five.
“The experts that testified before the Subcommittee on Oversight that I chaired when we had a hearing on this established fairly persuasively that there is no vetting,” Bishop told the DCNF. “It’s a perfunctory, quick interview, and they move on into the country and are released.”
“China is the foremost adversary of the United States on the world stage,” Bishop warned. “Something’s descending on the United States that we should never have allowed to occur.”
Featured image courtesy of Denice Flores.
2025 Federal Election
Bureau Exclusive: Chinese Election Interference Network Tied to Senate Breach Investigation
As Canada’s election unfolds, fresh questions emerge over whether foreign interference has reached Parliament’s inner chambers.
A Canadian Parliamentarian assessed by national security officials to be part of a Toronto-based Chinese consulate election interference network was the subject of a high-profile foreign interference investigation into an alleged breach of Canada’s Senate, The Bureau has confirmed through multiple intelligence sources.
Sources said the investigation examined allegations that the Parliamentarian enabled a close associate—described as a female Chinese national—to bypass Senate security protocols.
A source familiar with the Senate breach allegation said the probe was triggered by a complaint from a sitting Canadian senator, who believed they had observed a troubling pattern of behavior involving the Parliamentarian and their Chinese companion. The concern, the source said, centered on the alleged bypassing of Senate security screening, unauthorized entry into the parliamentary precinct, and access to secure Government of Canada computer systems.
While The Bureau could not independently confirm whether the allegations were ultimately substantiated, the details align closely with broader risks outlined in NSICOP’s 2024 findings on foreign interference, which stated that CSIS’s investigations were valid, and that China—and other states, including India—had established deeply concerning relationships with Canadian lawmakers.
NSICOP warned that Parliamentarians across all parties are potential targets for interference by foreign states. The committee found that such operations may be overt or covert, and that members of both the House of Commons and the Senate are considered “high-value” targets. Foreign states, the report stated, “use traditional tradecraft to build relationships that can be used to influence, coerce or exploit.”
NSICOP concluded that during the period under review, Beijing “developed clandestine networks surrounding candidates and elected officials to gain undisclosed influence and leverage over nomination processes, elections, parliamentary business and government decision-making.”
Records indicate that the Parliamentarian in question has maintained longstanding ties to several diaspora organizations affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party—including the Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada, a business group based in Markham linked to Beijing’s United Front Work Department, and now tied to a controversial meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney during his leadership campaign in January.
Specifically on Chinese interference, NSICOP’s explosive report stated: “The United Front Work Department… has established community organizations to facilitate influence operations against specific members of Parliament and infiltrated existing community associations to reorient them toward supporting CCP policies and narratives.”
In an interview with The Bureau, a sitting senator—who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter—was asked whether they believed NSICOP’s findings were valid and whether Chinese state actors had influenced the Senate.
“Without a doubt. Without a doubt,” the senator said. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Some speeches in the Senate of Canada—one would not be surprised if they had been written directly in the offices of the United Front in Beijing. Many of the senators, if you see the positions they articulate, the way they articulate and the way they vote, speaks volumes about who they stand with. But the one thing about being a public office holder—at some point in time, you’ve got to stand on your feet.”
Those observations are echoed by findings in the NSICOP report, which states: “Foreign states developed clandestine networks surrounding candidates and elected officials to gain undisclosed influence.”
The report also found that “some Parliamentarians are either semi-witting or witting participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in Canadian politics… including providing privileged information to foreign intelligence officers.”
However, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, in a contrary conclusion issued through her federal inquiry, assessed that “no evidence” had been presented of intentional wrongdoing by Parliamentarians implicated in CSIS foreign interference investigations. Instead, she concluded that some officials may have made “bad decisions.”
Still, specifics of the investigation into the Parliamentarian strongly resemble the broader findings of NSICOP—particularly if the allegation of providing inappropriate access to Canada’s Senate facilities to a Chinese national is substantiated.
In interviews conducted between 2022 and 2025, The Bureau’s sources—who requested anonymity due to fears of professional retribution—said they believe Canada’s national security agencies were inhibited from pursuing broader investigations into Parliamentarians and politicians across all levels of government. They described how CSIS agents’ efforts to advance foreign interference cases were at times delayed or obstructed by senior managers reluctant to scrutinize powerful political figures.
More broadly, the sources asserted that CSIS remains structurally constrained from effectively investigating senior officials and Parliamentarians. As a result, they warned, investigations into those broadly referenced in the 2024 NSICOP Special Report on Foreign Interference have not—and likely could not—produce meaningful deterrence against ongoing threats from China and other hostile foreign states.
The Bureau’s review of open-source records shows that the Parliamentarian at the center of the Senate allegations has, from the 2019 CSIS investigation to the present, maintained significant ties to multiple Canadian organizations linked to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department.
These include the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations, the Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada, and a third British Columbia–based entity, which has documented connections to both the United Front and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference—an entity the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has identified as Beijing’s central united front body.
The matter has gained urgency in the context of Canada’s ongoing federal election, in which Mark Carney’s party has come under scrutiny following The Globe and Mail’s revelation of his campaign’s January 2025 meeting with JCCC leadership—a meeting Carney’s team later denied. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has also faced criticism over his 2022 leadership race, which, according to documents and interviews reviewed by The Bureau, was allegedly targeted by both Chinese foreign interference networks and individuals aligned with the Indian government.
As previously reported by The Bureau, during the pandemic, several Liberal Party officials were involved in a PPE shipment initiative coordinated with the JCCC and authorities tied to the Chinese Communist Party. Official CCP correspondence praised the JCCC’s donations to China, and the group’s response acknowledged its operations were “organized under the guidance” of the United Front Work Department and other Party-aligned bodies. One co-signer of that letter was a senior Liberal organizer who had also served as JCCC president.
2025 Federal Election
CSIS Warned Beijing Would Brand Conservatives as Trumpian. Now Carney’s Campaign Is Doing It.
Sam Cooper
Canadian intelligence reported in 2021 that Beijing planned to interfere in Canada’s next federal election with disinformation suggesting the Conservatives “will follow the path of … Donald Trump”—a narrative now echoed in a clandestine dirty tricks operation exposed inside Prime Minister Mark Carney’s campaign.
A 2021 CSIS intelligence bulletin marked “Secret,” warned that Chinese consular officials planned to influence future Canadian elections by portraying Conservative politicians as “Trump-like” and hostile to immigrants. The document has been redacted by The Bureau.
The warning comes from a classified CSIS bulletin dated December 20, 2021 and marked Secret, distributed to Canadian departments including Global Affairs Canada, the Privy Council Office, the Communications Security Establishment, and Five Eyes intelligence partners. The report was based on information from Chinese consular officials in Canada.
According to the CSIS assessment, a consulate official in mid-November 2021 discussed how Chinese influence in federal ridings with large Chinese-Canadian populations had proven effective, and laid out a forward-looking strategy to shape future electoral outcomes. The official reportedly stated:
“Ethnic Chinese voters should be told that if the CPC wins a federal election, the CPC will follow the path of former United States President Donald Trump and ban Chinese students from certain universities or educational programs. This will threaten the future of the voters’ children.”
The consulate official also suggested that during Canada’s next federal election, the message should be circulated that the Conservative Party of Canada “is critical of the PRC and opposed to individuals from mainland China.” The remarks were made shortly after Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won a minority government in the fall of 2021.
CSIS concluded that PRC officials believed Chinese immigrants were relatively easy to influence toward Beijing’s geopolitical goals and could be mobilized to oppose Canada’s Conservative Party. The bulletin describes a broader context in which Chinese state actors sought to paint Canadian Conservatives as hostile to immigrants, aligned with Trump-style nationalism.
The Bureau’s analysis suggests that if Chinese state-linked actors intended to repeat this narrative in the 2025 federal campaign, they would find their narrative echoed by the Liberal Party’s own war room tactics.
Prime Minister Mark Carney this morning acknowledged wrongdoing inside his campaign, following revelations that Liberal operatives had planted fake political buttons at a major Conservative conference in an effort to smear Pierre Poilievre’s campaign as a Trump-style threat to Canada.
The Liberal Party has attempted to downplay the scandal, calling it an instance of overzealous political operatives getting “carried away.” But the parallels to Beijing’s 2021 disinformation strategy—as outlined in the CSIS bulletin—raise broader concerns over domestic political campaigns echoing or amplifying hostile state narratives.
The disinformation scandal was first exposed by CBC News on Sunday, April 13. According to the report, two Liberal staffers attended the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference last week. Observers have noted ticket prices for the event cost hundreds of dollars, suggesting the Liberal infiltration was well planned and resourced. They scattered buttons reading “Stop the Steal” along with buttons favouring Alberta secession movements and other political messages that would suggest Pierre Poilievre’s campaign is attracting MAGA-like extremists in Canada that may be open to Trump’s earlier jibes of turning Canada into a “51st State.”
The aim was to create the appearance of Trumpian division and election denialism within Poilievre’s camp.
Asked about the scandal at a press conference today, Prime Minister Carney said: “The responsible people have been reassigned within the campaign.”
But the half-apology has failed to quell public concern.
The concerns extend well beyond party politics, in The Bureau’s analysis. Two weeks ago, Canada’s Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force identified a sophisticated PRC information campaign targeting Chinese-language social media in Canada. On March 10 and March 25, the WeChat account Youli-Youmian, linked to Chinese Communist Party propaganda efforts, shared widely amplified posts portraying Mark Carney in a highly favorable light.
One post, titled “The US encounters a ‘tough guy’ Prime Minister,” framed Carney as standing up to Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
According to SITE, both posts were rapidly boosted by a coordinated cluster of 30 smaller WeChat accounts, garnering between 85,000 and 130,000 interactions and as many as three million views. SITE attributed the surge to a broader PRC information operation.
At the SITE briefing Monday, The Bureau questioned whether the task force would investigate the Carney campaign’s “ButtonGate” scandal as potential domestic election interference—especially given the operation echoed a PRC disinformation playbook from 2021 that falsely depicted the Conservatives as Trump-style extremists. The question also raised whether SITE had the capacity to examine any crossover between this Liberal narrative and a broader foreign campaign.
A SITE spokesperson replied cautiously: “National security agencies take any attempt to undermine our democracy really seriously… Not all disinformation is foreign-backed… but SITE is committed to informing Canadians when emerging issues can be linked to foreign state actors.”
The official did not say whether SITE would investigate the Liberal Party’s role in the disinformation campaign.
In the same session, a National Post reporter asked SITE whether they were minimizing the implications of PRC-linked social media accounts appearing to promote Mark Carney.
“There was a lot of talk about the information that was put out,” the reporter said. “But there was also a fair amount of interpretation by many online that viewed the posts in question on WeChat as China endorsing Mark Carney or promoting the Liberals… trying to rig the election, or at the very least, push Chinese Canadians to vote for Mr. Carney.”
SITE responded by emphasizing its broader framing: “In our briefing, as you know, we cited both positive and negative posts. What was and remains important for us is that the Youli-Youmian account is linked to a foreign state, and the information it shared may be used to manipulate. That was what we felt was important to get across.”
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