Exclusive: How the RCMP, CBSA, and Trudeau Government Lost U.S. Trust in the Fentanyl Fight
Surveillance operations have raised alarms after placing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a former cabinet minister in proximity to Asian organized crime suspects.
Veteran law enforcement officials—both active and retired—from the United States and Canada have come forward with explosive allegations suggesting that Canada’s federal government may have systematically obstructed investigations into the highest levels of Asian organized crime. According to these sources, American agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, have grown so alarmed by suspected corruption and legal loopholes in Canada that they have effectively sidelined Canadian law enforcement from sensitive investigations and intelligence-sharing.
Several veterans of Canadian law enforcement argue that while U.S. President Donald Trump’s critiques of Canada’s handling of fentanyl trafficking and border security are politically charged and often harsh, they underscore an uncomfortable reality: Canada is increasingly perceived as compromised—either incapable or unwilling to confront entrenched transnational criminal networks. American and Canadian sources alike describe a nation whose law enforcement agencies are in disarray, inhibited by suspected infiltration at the highest levels, obstructing investigations into billion-dollar drug networks and money laundering operations.
These American and Canadian experts pointed to the notorious case of Cameron Ortis, Canada’s former top police intelligence official, who was convicted of leaking Five Eyes signals intelligence to some of the world’s most dangerous Iranian state-sponsored criminals. His case, still cloaked in national security secrecy, is believed to have also involved Chinese espionage investigations. But concerns about corruption within Canada’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies extend far beyond Ortis himself, according to enforcement experts who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Several said that U.S. officials suspect corruption within the ranks of Canadian border authorities, yet those suspects allegedly retained their security clearances.
“It was mind-boggling. The Americans would say, we have good reason to suspect that this particular CBSA officer is corrupt,” a Canadian policing expert said. “This information would be provided to higher-ups in CBSA with the understanding that this particular CBSA officer is not to show up at any future joint meetings. So eventually there would be a meeting, and the CBSA officer in question would show up at the meeting. The lead American investigator would end the meeting before it started. The Americans would shake their heads in disgust and disbelief.”
The expert said this growing distrust is a key reason why the United States has scaled back its collaboration with Canadian law enforcement over the past decade.
“The border as it’s run now is—Homeland Security, they have no respect for CBSA, none,” the expert said. “CBSA were seen as tax collectors for picking on families coming across the border with two bottles of wine and not actually doing police seizures of proper amounts of drugs coming through the border. It was a longstanding joke that they were basically collecting taxes for a mom and dad driving back with two packs of cigarettes and too many six-packs of beer, while behind it, there’s a truck coming with 200, 300, 500 kilos of cocaine. It was just ridiculous. And that’s how Homeland Security and DEA saw our CBSA.
“And I don’t want to paint every CBSA officer with that brush as being useless—some of them are excellent people,” they added. “But it’s just run so poorly. The level of incompetence within Canadian law enforcement is staggering. I don’t think people understand—if they did, they’d probably be too scared to know how bad it actually is.”
Several veteran law enforcement officials say concerns extend beyond Canada’s ability to confront transnational crime—to the country’s political leadership itself. According to two RCMP experts, quiet surveillance operations have raised alarms after placing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a former cabinet minister in proximity to Asian organized crime suspects.
“There were real concerns about Asian organized crime figures being at Liberal fundraisers with access to Prime Minister Trudeau,” one veteran enforcement source said. “This is deeply concerning. It was openly discussed in some units. Again, when you are talking about billions of dollars in criminal profits, this equals real power and influence. I’m not accusing the Prime Minister or any politician of being corrupt. But we would be naive to think that ultra-rich criminals don’t use their resources in an attempt to sway or influence prominent people.”
Highlighting the elite capabilities of U.S. agencies they worked closely with, the expert added, “We dealt with Homeland Security on different investigations where they were using very sensitive intel techniques—as good as anything that exists for law enforcement. They could easily have captured criminals with information related to the Canadian government or other officials that might not come to light through Canadian investigations.”
The police expert, explaining the decision to come forward at a pivotal moment in U.S.-Canada relations, argued that Canadians remain largely unaware of the nation's vulnerabilities.
“People have to be able to see and understand how bad it is. We are not even considered a serious partner, vis-à-vis Trump, at this point. Fentanyl coming from Canada to the USA isn’t something Trump is just throwing out there. He’s getting this information from top American law enforcement officials who know exactly how far Canada has fallen. And as a police officer who risked my life countless times alongside other brave men and women, I find it embarrassing that we’ve let our country get to this state.”
According to multiple enforcement veterans, American agencies began withholding intelligence more than ten years ago after repeated incidents in which top‐secret files were jeopardized or blocked by Canadian legal demands.
“The level of stuff the Americans were willing to work with us on was incredible, but we were so hamstrung by Canadian disclosure laws and RCMP policies—written to protect the RCMP from potential embarrassments rather than to protect Canadians from actual dangers,” said a federal veteran with direct knowledge of Five Eyes law enforcement.
The veteran described learning of briefings from senior Washington officials “where they showed how intelligence was disseminated, and it was shared with the Five Eyes partners—excluding Canada. It was embarrassing.”
At the center of U.S. government alarm, sources believe, is the case of Sam Gor—one of the world’s most powerful Triad drug trafficking networks, with reported links to Chinese Communist Party operatives, according to U.S. government experts such as former Trump State Department official David Asher.
Three Canadian experts said Australia had warned Canada about the threat posed by Sam Gor—also known as “The Company”—long before the RCMP recognized it as a major transnational syndicate. Widely regarded as a highly sophisticated enterprise, Sam Gor links Southeast Asian drug networks—responsible for trafficking tens of billions of dollars in fentanyl and methamphetamine—to global operations involving Latin American cartels and large-scale money laundering.
Canada’s largest-ever money laundering investigation, E-Pirate, was directly linked to Sam Gor—a fact not widely disclosed, according to a Canadian source with direct knowledge of the case. The investigation collapsed in late 2019 after a police witness was exposed, resulting in a high-profile failure in federal court. Since then, Sam Gor’s leaders have continued to exploit Canada for fentanyl trafficking and money laundering, facing little resistance. E-Pirate uncovered how their operations funneled billions in drug cash through British Columbia government casinos, hundreds of Chinese bank accounts, and vast pools of illicit funds circulating throughout Latin America.
“For example, the Americans—the intel these guys were giving us on money laundering associated to B.C. government casinos and the E-Pirate investigations—the Americans were more than willing to take this on, but it’s in Canada,” a veteran enforcement source said. “It was the Sam Gor crime group or The Company, as police sometimes call it. We had information on some of those people operating across Western Canada—these huge cells of Asian organized crime—and investigations would stall due to delays with approvals or shifting priorities, dictated ultimately by Ottawa.”