Missing Toronto realtor featured prominently in Beijing's United Front networks, records and sources indicate

Homicide detectives will be interested in Anita Mui's dealings and associations, York Regional Police say

While homicide detectives in Toronto search for a prominent realtor who vanished ten days ago, a profile of the woman’s associations is surfacing, showing a politically-active Chinese community leader who often rubbed elbows with Toronto Chinese Consulate officials, Canadian MPs and Senators, and deep-pocketed Chinese-Canadian businessmen who have been probed by CSIS and the RCMP.

York Regional Police say Yuk-Ying ‘Anita’ Mui’s white 2024 Mercedes Benz SUV, worth about $100,000, was found empty in a Scarborough strip mall a short drive from her home.

She left her home in Markham, Ont., the morning of August 9 and was reported missing by her family when she failed to return.

Police have searched a 10-acre rural property in Stouffville, 30 minutes north of where Mui’s Mercedes was found. Detectives believe Mui was scheduled to visit the property on August 9, potentially for real estate dealings.

Mui, who immigrated to Toronto from Hong Kong in 1990, completed many commercial real estate and luxury home transactions with high-net worth immigrant investors from China, she told a reporter in a 2017 profile article. She had also done well by investing in land assembly deals herself, Mui said, and “successfully planned, sold and managed civil and commercial real estate projects.”

Numerous articles on Mandarin-language websites display the other side of Anita Mui’s career: community fundraising and pro-PRC politics in Toronto networks overtly tied to Beijing’s United Front Work Department.

A real estate agent contacted The Bureau with new information about Mui as Canadian media seek to understand her life and suspicious disappearance.

The real estate source provided a WeChat message sent out by Mui in 2023, in which she pressed Chinese-Canadians to sign petition-4395, a movement urging the Canadian government to reconsider a foreign agent registry.

The source, who will not be named for safety reasons, said they believed Anita Mui was “deeply” involved with community groups associated with the United Front Work Department, the Chinese Communist Party entity that is at the center of political and financial networks probed in CSIS’s ongoing Chinese election-interference investigations.

The WeChat message shows Mui’s business phone number and her profile picture.

“Less than 1000 signatures so far,” the message says. “If we don't speak up for ourselves, do we expect others to speak up for us? Let's all work together to mobilize our family and friends to sign!”

The petition, which was started by a journalist from a Richmond, B.C., outlet called Rise Weekly was promoted through a variety of “online and offline” campaigns, Richmond News reported.

“Some of these campaigns featured high-ranking politicians such as Conservative Senator Victor Oh [and] independent Senator Yuen Pau Woo,” the paper reported a year ago.

In September 2018, Senator Victor Oh was there to support Anita Mui’s community fundraiser, the pair standing shoulder-to-shoulder as the Northern Spirit cruised Toronto Harbour with hundreds of guests including Scarborough Liberal MP Shaun Chen, according to a Chinese-media event report and photos.

Later, in 2019, Liberal Minister Mary Ng was the star attraction among dozens of MPs and Ontario provincial and municipal politicians, all celebrating with Toronto Consulate diplomats at a high-profile masquerade ball — with hundreds of Chinese community attendees highlighted by VIPs including Mui’s group and various Chinese chamber of commerce entities.

Anita Mui was also featured prominently in a crowd of similar size and composition in 2017 celebrating the 68th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, with Toronto Consulate officials and a group called Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations, which has leaders that have attended United Front Work Department meetings in Beijing, and have been investigated by the RCMP for alleged Chinese police station activity in Toronto.

In yet another 2017 meeting, Senator Oh presents Anita Mui an award at a charity fundraising dinner, as Mui is pictured cutting a massive white cake, with Oh and Toronto-area Liberal MPs Geng Tan and Shaun Chen and Arnold Chan looking on.

An unclassified 2021 report from Public Safety Canada says "Beijing uses the UFWD to stifle criticism, infiltrate foreign political parties, diaspora communities, universities and multinational corporations.”

The report cites research from Australian security analyst Alex Joske, who said Canadian leaders are well-known for attending United Front gatherings, and the United Front exerts influence through political donations and co-opting international politicians.