PRC narcos in Toronto are "command and control" for North American money laundering networks used in TD Bank case: US investigator
"In almost all the investigations as far as money laundering, we’d seize their phones, and see Canada light up like a Christmas tree": State Department official on US banking investigations
In an explosive interview regarding U.S. government investigations into billions of dollars of fentanyl-cash laundering through Toronto-Dominion Bank and other major U.S. banks, David Asher, a former senior investigator working with the State Department, CIA, and DEA Special Operations Division, stated that transnational mafias co-opted by the Chinese Communist Party run North American money laundering networks through a “command and control” structure centered in Toronto and linked to the notorious Markham, Ontario-based narco-kingpin known as Tse Chi Lop, a.k.a. 'Brother Number 3.'
Asher said the U.S. government has irrefutable evidence that Chinese Triad leaders such as Tse Chi Lop are working with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to facilitate global money laundering and drug trafficking operations that involve Mexican cartels.
Asher described these criminal organizations as integral components of the CCP's strategy, effectively weaponizing them against Western nations, particularly the U.S. and Canada.
Asher's testimony serves as a dire warning about the consequences of inaction, urging a comprehensive strategy to dismantle these powerful and deeply entrenched criminal networks.
Key findings from this long-form interview include:
Chinese State-Triad Nexus: David Asher claims that Chinese Triads like the 14K and Sun Yee On have been co-opted by the Chinese Communist Party to facilitate global money laundering and drug trafficking.
Toronto Command Center: U.S. investigations indicate that key command-and-control operations for North American money laundering are based in Toronto and other Canadian cities.
Chinese International Students Used as Mules: Tasked within Beijing’s foreign influence arm, the United Front Work Department, Chinese students are systematically used to deposit fentanyl cash for Triads and Mexican cartels into North American banks, Asher said.
TD Bank Under Fire: TD Bank's alleged involvement in laundering fentanyl-related funds has triggered regulatory and criminal investigations that could cost TD more than $4 billion, but Asher suggests this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Major U.S. Banks: Investigators believe financial institutions have been allowing internationals “from China on student visas to drop billions of dollars a month into all of the biggest banks in the U.S.,” Asher said.
Canada’s Inaction: Asher criticizes the Canadian government for inadequate cooperation in the Tse Chi Lop and broader fentanyl-trafficking and Triad money laundering investigations and suggests possible political and financial influences are hampering effective law enforcement.
Fentanyl Crisis Link: The failure to disrupt these networks is contributing to the ongoing fentanyl crisis, which claims tens of thousands of lives annually in the U.S. and Canada.
Beijing Subsidizing Meth Trafficking: Asher disclosed that U.S. Congressional investigators allege the People’s Republic is not only incentivizing fentanyl precursor exports but also methamphetamine sales.
Call for Action: Asher, currently a Senior Fellow with the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., calls for stronger international cooperation and more aggressive action to dismantle these sophisticated transnational criminal networks.
The Bureau
David, thanks for doing this on-the-record interview.
We are talking today because you are a networks expert and have targeted and investigated some of the top threat networks that endanger the United States and Canada and the world.
I know you were among the top U.S. officials that targeted Tse Chi Lop in the years leading up to his extradition to Australia, and the DEA facilitated his arrest in Europe for certain reasons.
So can you talk about how important Tse Chi Lop is to command and control in North America, both in terms of drug trafficking, import-export, and money laundering. And why Canadians should care?
David Asher
Well, I can tell you right now, for the record, that when we looked at the telephonic communications of Chinese organized criminals that DEA arrested in the U.S., especially in New York and New Jersey, there was an extraordinary amount of communication with Canada. It seemed like they were being controlled out of Canada, and I'm happy to say that on the record. We seized these people's cell phones, ran them, and saw who they were calling in Canada.
Were they calling Tse Chi Lop? I don't know his phone number, but there’s very good reason to suspect that Canadian command and control continues, at least for money laundering and a fair extent of fentanyl precursor exports from Hong Kong and other parts of China.
But we’ve just not had adequate cooperation from the Canadian government.
The Bureau
Let’s talk about Toronto Dominion Bank.
David Asher
Yes, I think I told you well over a year ago that TD was going to get targeted, and now they’re facing multi-billion-dollars in fines. I don’t know the exact number they’ve agreed to, but it’s huge.
But the thing about TD is they were doing the same thing every major U.S. bank was doing.
They were picking up drug money from Chinese students in the U.S. who were dropping it off. These triads were using these students as money brokers in the U.S.
And the triad brokers were handing the money off to students to deposit in their parents' names. Tse Chi Lop certainly played a significant role in that whole thing. Again, DEA basically facilitated that arrest of Tse Chi Lop with the Dutch.
And by the way, a lot of people have read your book. You are famous in the DEA.
The Bureau
I really appreciate that. I’m eager to do what I can with the United States to spotlight and tackle these threats.
So in terms of today’s on-the-record conversation, is it fair to say, that when you guys picked up phones from suspects [in the U.S. investigations into TD Bank] and when you ran those numbers up to Canada? Let me first just make a comparison of the international networks involved.
So, if I tell you that Paul King Jin, the major suspect named in my book Wilful Blindness, who is from Vancouver, was searched at a Mexican airport and they found Broken Tooth Koi’s business card on his person. That would be totally consistent with what you are seeing in your U.S. investigations?
[Editor’s note: Wan Kuok ‘Broken Tooth’ Koi is the notorious 14K Triad leader from Macau associated to Tse Chi Lop’s networks. Koi is sanctioned by the U.S. government in connection to his illicit financial networks and his Chinese state influence activities, including his membership in the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. The CIA calls this body Beijing’s basic united front structure.]
David Asher
Totally unsurprising. Absolutely not surprising. The 14K Triad is the dominant triad in partnership with the Sinaloa drug cartel. I can say that on the record.
Paul King Jin is definitely a somewhat mysterious but obviously important figure who showed up in DEA investigations.
Our problem was we just never got the level of cooperation from Canada, that we used to have. And then when I was at the State Department from 2019 to 2021, I can’t recall us having any conversations of note with Canadian law enforcement on anything I can think of related to fentanyl. I don't know what it was, but the Trudeau government just was not …”
The Bureau
Right. So my point also is that Paul King Jin, being a real figure of interest, I understand he is related to the Big Circle Boys and 14K and what Five Eyes law enforcement sometimes calls The Company.
And this is all related to Tse Chi Lop’s networks in Canada. The common thing from my understanding, is it involves China-connected leaders that bridge the traditional triads together.
David Asher
Yes, but the reality is, I mean, now what happened when Broken Tooth Koi was flipped by the Chinese Communist Party when he was arrested back in 1999?
They sort of converted him to communism. And so a lot of this — we believe, based on good information — is this is a Chinese Communist enterprise. And one of the things that’s really important — and I’m sure you’ve read it — is the congressional report on the CCP subsidies for fentanyl precursor exports to Mexico.
That may seem divorced from Tse Chi Lop, but it’s really not.
The Communists have been underwriting what you’ve referred to as the “reverse opium war.” And we now know that for certain. It’s not hypothetical. We have absolute damning evidence, and it’s in the congressional report. It’s a pure network structure, and Tse Chi Lop had a significant command and control role over the entire North America operations.
The Bureau
Okay. So just to confirm, my understanding is the same as yours. Basically, The Company and Tse Chi Lop, aka Sam Gor — you’re talking about Brother Number Three. The Company is this syndicate of so-called ‘brothers’ that are leaders of triads affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party.
David Asher
Yes, but it’s the United Front Work Department that is controlling the money laundering.
And the money laundering is what really tells you what’s going on in terms of community control. They’re not just doing this as sort of a marriage of convenience. Because the Chinese are laundering the money globally for no profit.
[Editor’s note: U.S. government investigations show Chinese money laundering networks charge Mexican cartels as little as one to two percent fees to wash fentanyl cash. In other words, Beijing is subsidizing drug trafficking and money laundering strategically in global trade and influence operations.]
There was a press conference a month ago in Los Angeles about this takedown they had in California of Chinese money launderers for the Sinaloa cartel.
And they explained exactly how the money works, which is: rich Chinese need to get their money—want to get their money—out of China.
They can only export $50,000 legally. To get their money out illegally, they have to consign it to Chinese triad money brokers under the umbrella of the 14K Triad, which has this overarching control of the other triads.
And it has an extraordinarily close relationship with the Communist Party. That’s why Wan Kuok-koi, aka Broken Tooth, runs around with a Chinese diplomatic passport.
I mean, there’s no better proof that the triads are part of the Communist Party than the head of the biggest triad being a Chinese diplomat. I mean, this is diplomacy for China — trafficking drugs.
And by the way, we now have in Congress investigations, and I don’t know if this is public, but you can quote me on it: we’re seeing substantial evidence that methamphetamine exports from China are also being given a value-added tax rebate.
So they’re basically not being taxed.
So that’s even more evidence.
I mean, the fact that they’re deducting an export tax that all Chinese are supposed to pay for exporting pretty much anything from China, but if you export fentanyl precursors or actual meth or even fentanyl itself, you don’t pay the value-added tax. So the Chinese government is underwriting the reverse opium war, and we know that definitively.
And most of what we’re seeing is coming from this TD Bank case, and there’s a lot more. We’ll see which one of the big four U.S. banks gets named next.
The scheme is — the real estate in the United States and Canada, as you’ve reported, there’s a huge amount of it being bought with cash.
FinCEN put out a warning yesterday. They put out a warning to banks that they have to comply with surveillance mechanisms and prevention mechanisms to stop the laundering of opioid profits. My view is that’s an indication there are going to be bigger cases to come, and we’re going to see bigger banks than even TD targeted, and it won’t just be Canadian banks.
The Bureau
Okay, let me ask you this for the record.
So just on the TD Bank investigation piece, is it fair to say that when you were looking at those calls up to Toronto, Markham, Vancouver, British Columbia, do you see a connection between that money laundering command and control in Canada, the bulk cash pickups, and the kind of things that you and others were investigating at TD Bank in the United States with the students doing bulk cash pickups?
David Asher
A hundred percent connected. We saw it all the time. I mean, because if you follow the money, you follow the money right to Canada in terms of the command control of the money.
But TD.
I can tell you in one case we saw very clear evidence that they were accepting tens of millions of dollars in bulk deposits of cash — I can only say that much. I don’t want to get too specific. I don’t want to single out TD only. TD is really the tip of a deep iceberg, is how I’d put it on the record. What do TD Bank's leadership in Canada know about what was going on in the U.S.?
And then the question is, this is the U.S. So what the hell is going on with TD Bank in Canada? We don’t know.
My own personal view is that this is a scheme that does have a high degree of command and control based on evidence through Canada. But it is not a scheme that we have managed to wholly penetrate due to, frankly, in my mind, inadequate cooperation from the Canadian government.
And I’m happy to say that on the record. I mean, the Canadian government has just not been—they’re not the level of partners that we used to have.
We used to have a great relationship with Canada, but it doesn’t exist right now.
And so the question is: Is it because DEA is not asking the right questions, and FBI is not asking the right questions? The system is basically broken, and it’s not all Canada’s fault. The United States’ financial law enforcement has basically been atrocious for decades, and it continues to be atrocious. And I’ll say that on the record.
We’re losing 100,000 people in North America, between the U.S. and Canada, minimum, to fentanyl poisoning deaths a year. We should be treating this like its a new type of hybrid war. We are losing citizens like we haven’t seen since World War II.
The Bureau
Ok, let me get you to boil this down for the record.
I think what you’re saying is that command and control for the North American drug money laundering — at billions in scale for fentanyl proceeds — can be attributed to the Tse Chi Lop-associated triad networks, which are commanded and controlled, essentially, these are the exact same ones I pointed to in British Columbia casinos. The Big Circle, 14K, The Company.
This can be tied to the TD Bank case. But for banks in North America, it is not just TD.
Beyond that, you’re saying we don’t even know how big the problem is in Canada?
David Asher
What TD did was not as significant as what we saw, at least — I should say we saw, because I can’t tell you it’s continuing — the largest big four U.S. banks were engaged in as well.
All the big banks in the United States, and TD is one of the big banks in the United States, were allowing international Chinese students from Communist China, not Americans, not Canadian Chinese — these aren’t our citizens — they are allowing internationals from China on student visas to drop billions of dollars a month into all of the biggest banks in the U.S., which happened to include TD.
But the key thing is the Canadian connection, and in almost all the investigations as far as money laundering, we saw the command control seemed to go back to our network analysis, which was not just with phone analysis off the phones of the guys we arrested—and women too—but when we seized their phones, we’d see Canada light up like a Christmas tree, especially Toronto, and also British Columbia.
But a lot from Toronto.
And because you’re a Five Eyes partner and we treat that very seriously, even if Cameron Ortis didn’t treat it that way, we can’t just go and subpoena the phone records of Chinese-Canadians without working through an extensive process with the Canadian government.