The Bureau Podcast

In today’s Bureau Podcast, I reconnect with my former journalism colleague Jesse Ferreras. We both came of age as reporters in Vancouver and worked together at Global News, including on an investigation into some of the most significant figures in what became known as the Vancouver Model. We don’t walk through those cases in detail on the tape, but I’ve long believed some of the people we examined...

OTTAWA — In this conversation with Canada’s highest-profile political columnist, Brian Lilley, I dive into how I first uncovered the improbable rise of Ryan Wedding — and how he turned Canada into a conduit for the world’s most powerful and dangerous Mexican cartels, working alongside state-adjacent actors from Iran, China, and beyond. Brian, a veteran Toronto Sun reporter, will also be sharing th...

OTTAWA — In a recent episode of The Shawn Ryan Show , former Navy intelligence specialist Chase Hughes laid out what a psychological operation really is — and how to recognize one. He describes a psyop as a narrative-driven effort to control perception in order to shape behaviour, with the ultimate goal being identity change: getting a population to see themselves as a certain kind of person (“peo...

In this episode, Charles Burton recounts his 2018 detention by China’s secret police — an ordeal that included hours of interrogation by MSS officers and a covert escape from Shanghai aided by friends who feared for his safety. One of his interrogators, Burton later discovered, resurfaced in Taiwan working with Buddhist groups tied to Beijing’s United Front network — a revelation that adds new wei...

OTTAWA — In this episode, I join Jason James of BNN to unpack The Bureau’s latest findings on the Westminster espionage scandal that has sent shockwaves through British politics — and to draw the lines connecting that case to Canada’s own national-security crisis. In the case, President Xi Jinping’s powerful ally and reported spymaster, Cai Qi, is alleged to have overseen a covert Ministry of Stat...

OTTAWA/AUSTIN — In today’s episode of The Bureau Podcast , former U.S. Border Patrol agent Ammon Blair traces his path from military service to the front lines of America’s border—and explains why he believes Mexican cartels now function as a parallel power with expanding operations in Canada and in more than 60 countries worldwide. Blair says U.S. military sources have for years classified cartel...

OTTAWA — In this episode, I sit down again with BNN’s Jason James to unpack one of the most powerful and underexamined networks shaping Canadian policy: the enduring influence of McKinsey & Company and Dominic Barton — former global managing director of McKinsey, former Canadian ambassador to China, and architect of the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB). Through meticulous reporting and newly obtai...

OTTAWA — In this episode, Sikyong Penpa Tsering, President of the Central Tibetan Administration, joins me for a conversation on Tibet’s global significance. We explore Tibet’s geographical and geopolitical importance as the “water tower of Asia,” where rivers from the Tibetan Plateau sustain nearly two billion people across the region. Tsering explains why Tibet is central to Beijing’s ambitions...

This week on The Bureau Podcast , I speak with Jason James of BNN about Canada’s almost completely unknown crisis: major transnational drug-trafficking and money-laundering networks that either go uninvestigated or collapse before trial. From E-Pirate to E-Nationalize, Sindicato, Project Brisa, Project Cobra, Project Endgame, and a Quebec fentanyl super-lab network—every one of these high-stakes c...

TORONTO — This week on The Bureau Podcast, we speak with Toronto lawyer and independent journalist Caryma Sa’d about her explosive claims that Discord — the same chat platform now under FBI scrutiny after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — is also being used inside Canada by Antifa-aligned networks to coordinate harassment campaigns and share dossiers on political targets. S...

Today on The Bureau Podcast : unpacking my reporting on an explosive Justice Department watchdog report that confirmed the worst kind of national security malpractice. A senior FBI counterintelligence official leaked case-critical information from the agency’s multi-year probe into CEFC China — the energy conglomerate that bribed United Nations officials while simultaneously attempting to draw the...

VANCOUVER — In today’s Bureau podcast, Sam Cooper joins Jason James of BNN to probe the causes of RCMP non-cooperation before a U.S. Treasury sanction forced Canada’s police to investigate the Falkland superlab. The massive site in British Columbia contained enough precursor chemicals to manufacture 95 million lethal doses of fentanyl, exposing Canada’s deep links to Chinese and Mexican cartel net...

OTTAWA—LOS ANGELES In today’s Bureau podcast, Sam Cooper and Chris Meyer of Widefountain dig into the dramatic escape of Zhi Dong Zhang — code-named “Chino” — from house arrest in Mexico City just as U.S. courts unsealed a 30-page detention memo. Born in Beijing in 1987, Zhang is alleged to have commanded both Chinese and Mexican wings of cartel operations, controlling 150 companies and 170 bank a...

In this episode of The Bureau Podcast , investigative journalist Sam Cooper sits down with Chris Meyer of WideFountain to trace the stunning global patterns of cartel, Triad, and Chinese Communist Party–linked networks penetrating legitimate trade structures to launder narcotics proceeds and move fentanyl and meth invisibly around the world. Together, they examine how cartels and Chinese Triads ex...

In this sweeping conversation with Jason James of BNN, I discuss some of The Bureau ’s biggest investigations of the summer — including the widening pattern of prosecutorial failures in major synthetic narcotics and money laundering cases in British Columbia. We spotlight the recent collapse of charges against a Chinese-state linked scientist accused of importing over 100 kilograms of precursors f...

OTTAWA — A prominent former Canadian Special Forces operator who continues to train law enforcement says his former unit, Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2), should be granted the authorities and mandate to target fentanyl superlabs and dismantle the transnational narco-terror networks now embedding across Canada — from Chinese Communist Party proxies to cartel cells crossing the southern B.C. border with...

OTTAWA / LOS ANGELES — In this discussion with Chris Meyer of Widefountain, we dig deeper into my findings on an explosive narcotics precursor case quietly dropped by Canadian prosecutors—and what it reveals about Canada's growing vulnerabilities to foreign infiltration. We unpack the story of a Chinese chemist, known here as Dr. X , who was charged with importing more than 100 kilograms of PMK et...

OTTAWA/LOS ANGELES — Chris Meyer of Widefountain returns to question The Bureau on findings from The Quiet Invasion —a landmark timeline investigation into how Vancouver became a beachhead for transnational organized crime and Chinese hybrid warfare. What began in the late 1980s as low-profile infiltration by Chinese Triads has evolved into a full-spectrum crisis involving encrypted telecoms, fent...

OTTAWA–LOS ANGELES — In this special investigative discussion, Sam Cooper sits down with Chris Meyer of WideFountain to dissect the Chinese Communist Party’s long game—and its convergence with transnational organized crime—in infiltrating North America’s western front. As The Bureau prepares a sweeping timeline investigation into Chinese, Mexican, and Iranian threat networks saturating Vancouver,...

In this urgent breaking edition of The Bureau, investigative journalist Sam Cooper connects with frequent contributor Adam Zivo, live from Jerusalem, as day six of the war between Israel and Iran unfolds. Despite headlines warning of global escalation, Zivo reports a surprisingly calm atmosphere in Israel—even as tensions peak with Iran’s Supreme Leader threatening “irreparable damage” should the...

In this episode, Sam Cooper sits down with Jason James of BNN to examine The Bureau 's months-long investigation into the convergence of Chinese state-backed fentanyl networks, Mexican cartels, and Iranian proxy groups. The conversation revisits key findings from Wilful Blindness (2021), which first exposed how Vancouver’s port and economy were exploited as gateways for China’s transnational narco...

Sam welcomes back Chris Meyer from Wide Fountain to break down The Bureau’s explosive reporting with retired DEA agent Don Im —and the chilling implications of what Im and other U.S. experts describe as a “reverse Opium War.” They trace the roots of Beijing’s alleged silent role in a vast narcotics-finance system: a web of Triads, Communist Party actors, and Western enablers laundering drug procee...

Welcome back to The Bureau . Today, we bring you a special cross-border collaboration—linking explosive findings from rural Maine to revelations inside Vancouver’s shadow economy. Joining me is Steve Robinson, the investigative editor who got the ball rolling on a major story tying an illegal marijuana operation in Maine to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department—Beijing’s forei...

In this special episode, investigative Sinologist Chris Meyer of Wide Fountain joins The Bureau to dissect a deeply troubling picture emerging from our reporting—one that places Canada at the center of a global narcotics and money laundering operation with ties to Chinese intelligence. At the heart of the conversation: Chi Lap Tse, also known as Sam Gor, or “The Third Son”—the elusive boss of a tr...

In this podcast discussion with Jason James, I break down Prime Minister Mark Carney’s highly cynical—yet highly successful—election campaign, and explore the implications of three major recent investigations by The Bureau : * A deeper dive into Chinese Communist Party operations targeting Canada’s Parliament, including new details on threats against Conservative candidate Joseph Tay and his famil...