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He's angry about mortgages. It's angry mortgage. He's swearing. He's cursing loud. He's old. He's opinionated. And he's been doing this so damn long. This program is about mortgages and this is mortgage advice, but the advice may not apply to your situation. Contact licensed mortgage professionals for specific recommendations before you make decisions about mortgages. You may not agree with Ron, but if you don't, h thinks you're wrong. Oh, and did we say there is a lot of swearing? >> Welcome somebody that I've known for a long time. Uh we've there's we've gone through the wars together. Sam Cooper uh runs bureau.news, news, which is look, if you're not following it, get off your ass and follow it. I mean, seriously. I mean, if you want to know how things really work, if you want to know how things what really happens in Canada and that in ways that you're not going to hear from anybody else, you got to follow Sam. His book, Willful Blindness, was a shocking reveal of everything that went on, particularly in the Vancouver area. And let me just make it really clear to all because Sam's name gets smeared occasionally. Sam Cooper when you're in the business of exposing things that other that many people don't want exposed. You're going to get smeared a lot like a lot. But you know Sam is is endlessly redeemed from telling by because he's telling the truth. So that's that's who we're going to be talking to today. Sam, welcome. Um, we you and I have have been called many names in the past uh together, so missed many years. So, thank thanks for coming on the show. >> Really happy and looking forward to this chat, Ron. And you're right, we've been at some dinners, some some conferences where interesting information gets shared and some of it I can report. Yeah, there's always some stuff that you know that you know the way I I think about it, Sam, is is if you've had as many defamation cases as you and I have had, then you've got to you know, you try to manage your time and money. >> That's right. So, all right. So, let's go let's go way back for people who don't know you. Let's go all the way back to the very beginning, which I'll just summarize as the Vancouver model and hockey bags full of cash at in casinos. So, let's take take it from the top, Sam. Let's go back to the very start. >> All right. Yeah. This is memory lane. Uh Ron, it's really it's really the story of my journey as a reporter. >> I arrive in Vancouver, you know, and become a young professional around 2006, 2007. You recall very well this is the time of the subprime mortgage crisis you know in the US and as a sort of financially literate kind of interested person I was very interested in the US story you know uh studied it followed it and live as a young reporter in Vancouver I saw incredible crazy prices that no one that worked honestly for a living could afford right uh I don't need to go into the weeds but suffice to say one of lower average incomes uh for families in Canada. So about 70,000 at this time Canadian and yet we've got at the low end 1.5 million homes and these are like literally crack shacks in Vancouver and then it just goes off the board, right? Crazy. So my journey I got my mind on the subprime crisis. I'm looking at Vancouver saying there's a story here. What's the story of what the money driving the market? At the same time, I'm a city hall reporter uh for the Vancouver province when I start rising up in the news media a little bit. So, parallel tracks in my mind, I'm realizing that real estate development really drives the politics in Vancouver. You know, my coverage, this is the time when Gregor Robertson is the mayor there. The city is just going crazy in real estate. Before I get to the hockey bags of cash, I just want to tell you something that's on my mind recently. Uh, you know, Gregor Robertson was was mayor and there was a a developer who I who I won't name that wanted to challenge him for the throne of city hall and there was a story that I couldn't even report. I'm going to give you carefully the scoop today, Ron. Um, so said developer that wants to challenge Gregor Robertson and their people come to me with a scoop. They say an emissery from Gregor Robertson's office had reached out to this developer. Uh, Emissery is a very senior Canadian developer who I'm not going to name today. There's a dinner there's a dinner party. The emissery tells this developer, uh, you might not want to run. You know, um, it could come out that your development career has intersected with an outlaw motorbike in some ways. And so, huge story. I could never report it, Ron, but I did a lot of work. And to jump to the chase here. Yeah. So, this developer doesn't run. seems to be a really nice guy from what I can tell. I I asked a few questions and then the person's associate didn't really deny the allegations, but okay, Ron, 10, 15 years later, I learned that this emissary who I'm not going to name, who is very close to Gregor Robertson, our current housing minister, very close to Justin Trudeau, the type of person that funds, you know, uh Mark Carney's uh cash for access dinners. I I got the documentation that as I suspected a senior Hong Kong uh sort of mortgage investment corporation figure was a co-investor with this emissaryy who I'm not going to name major Canadian developer and I later learned through my uh criminal intelligence sources that this Hong Kong mortgage investment capitalist figure is connected to the Sam Gore triad in money laundering. So Ron, that I jumped I jumped ahead of the hockey bags of cash to tell you that you know uh I learned that I think this moneyaundering story, the Vancouver model goes to senior levels of Canadian politics in a way, senior levels of Canadian developers, senior law firms, senior bankers. It's just this it's a huge thing in Canada. So we we'll probably talk more about that, but I wanted to give you that little anecdotal scoop. hockey bags of cash. Um, after I sort of really get my head around uh the Vancouver political story, I'm reporting more and more more and more about how these mysterious investors from China are coming into Vancouver and starting something called crowdfunding real estate development, which is >> OH MY GOD. WELL, YEAH. Any anyone a kindergarten could see crowdfunding is about getting money from anywhere and crowdfunding it and ing is mystery money. That's it. >> Mystery money. Mystery money. It was obviously money laundering. And you know, I put a few of the big names together. I did like, you know, uh securities lending deep dives into all these, you know, second third tier mortgage investment corporations, low-level low-level uh kind of banks, third tier banks. And when I looked down their lending lists, you know, that there were like uh realtors that I knew were involved in court files that looked like money laundering, major uh shady people from China that couldn't explain their wealth. And so this is where we get to the casinos. Once I started writing about that crowdfunding uh Vancouver development story, the mystery money from China, uh people from Canadian government arms come come towards me and say that person you named in that story, they're a major figure in this thing, this this uh there's money being laundered through the British Columbia government casinos and the people you're naming in real estate are connected to like uh hockey bags of cash being delivered the people flying in from China and you know it it was called underground banking. That's the Vancouver model. So let's classify and define it for your listeners Ron that haven't read my book. Look the Vancouver model is how shady money from East Asia gets around the world simply you can be a a highle gangster government official someone with wealth in China. you get around their capital export controls by making a deal with a gangster in Vancouver who has ware literally they have warehoused uh bulk cash from drug sales and to launder it. They give it to this person flying in from China who takes that cash, walks into the casino, launderers their money, gambles it, and then uh, you know, pays that loan back in China to the gangster who has his, let's call it uh, what do you call it? A collateral partner banker, his g his gang banking buddy back in uh, Guandon where you know, rich Chinese person pays back that drug cash loan. That's the Vancouver model. That's the hockey bags of cash. And it gets really sophisticated, but I think I just kind of laid that's how I got into uh I broke that story in 2016 and the Vancouver model was from an Australian professor who looked at all my reporting and said this is a new typology of moneyaundering. This is the Vancouver model. >> So that's just just for the listeners and viewers who just think here's his hockey bag story. So, the famous hockey bag story is, and you've just described the sort of trail of the money, but the hockey bag story is going to a casino, going to the park casino in uh Vancouver with a hockey bag full of cash, going to the cashier, saying, "Hey, I'd like to do some gambling." The cashier accepts counts the money, accepts the money, ignores some of the little flakes of cocaine flying off the money as they're put running it through the machine. And this massive amount of money is then handed out in chips. Little bit of gambling happens. Win or lose, nobody cares. The chips come back to the cashier after a number of hours and the casino issues a check. They don't give you your cocaine dusted money back. they give you a check. So now this check is laundered a hockey bag full of money which is crazy unto itself and you now have a perfectly clean check from a a kind of an offshoot of the BC government. So you've cleaned up all your money now. Your money is now fully washed and you're laughing. And this just kept happening over and over and over and nobody said anything. I I think that's a fair until you said something. Nobody said anything. >> You're right. The scale the scale is stunning. So Ron, when I broke this story in 2016, I mean there are You're right. The the government the it's a crown corporation running these casinos in Vancouver. And the trick here was you and I know very well that anti-moneylaundering law in most most businesses in Canada, you'll you'll be in jail if you're a banker that allows someone with like dirty 20s, you know, bundled in blue rubber bands, pink rubber bands, consistent this is consistent with drug money, but you take that money in, you've broken the law essentially and you've got to if you don't report this is a suspicious transaction or reject it. basically common sense, you should be going to jail. But this is the trick within the Chinese diaspora. Uh people made excuses that oh it for cultural reasons uh people from China like to use cash. So of course you've got >> culture is culture. Look, Senator Senator Larry Campbell was on the board of the company at the center of this uh Great Canadian Gaming, which was, you know, I don't want to get ahead of the story here, but ultimately bought by Leon Black in like an Apollo in 2021 once once everything gets exposed by myself. But to get to your point, yeah, this was the government turned a blind eye. Everyone knew this was going on. They had tape recordings of these people struggling under Ron. I'm not I'm not exaggerating. People struggling under the weight of bags of cash into the casinos. The government, you know, uh anti- fraud and moneyaundering investigators would laugh at these tapes because they knew it was criminal, but the casino was allowing it. starting with that person at the cash cage who often probably like a you know a workingclass person from the diaspora who didn't want to be threatened by a gangster. So they allow that transaction. The person either gets a check you know or they get you know uh wrapped to banking standard hundreds. So that's called it's called coloring up. In other words you've taken a 20 and you colored it up to brown hundreds and you can you're right you can walk now you can go to the bank. You've done a step up on the moneyaundering chain and now you've got 100,000 or 200,000 300,000 for a down payment on your condo. So what's the scale after my reporting exposes this dozens of reports uh from myself at the Vancouver Sun where I used to work? They have this Cullen Commission into anti-money laundering with a >> they you you you caused an a whole commission to be formed to investigate this complete insanity of the hockey bags. They investigated the insan the insanity. They said my reports were accurate. And here's Ron. Justice Cullen said 1.4 billion in large cash transactions. Sorry, 1.2 billion. I want to be correct here. In the year of 2014, he tabulated there was 1.2 billion in these large cash drugstyle transactions in BC government casinos. mostly one in Richmond, BC. So that that's the scale, Ron. 1.2 billion in one year. That's incred. And all all coming from China. All Vancouver model. >> I'll remind you about I'll remind you of a golden oldie that you will immediately uh recall perfectly. The incredible story of the UBC student and part-time cafeteria worker who purchased a $24 million house. Now you you you'll remember that one clearly, I'm sure. Okay, so I'm not making this up. This is no fantasy. This is >> Yeah, I got the details on that one. >> The daughter The daughter of a Are we just going to call him a business person? We're just going to stay in our lane on that. We're call him a business person from China. >> Um I would call I I believe it was a Chinese official. And the kicker, the cherry on the top is the house was sold from Peter Brown of Canacord. Cancord Canacord came up in the news recently for some issues. And Ron, I know a lot more about Canacord and RCMP's knowledge of Canacord in the 1990s that I haven't reported. But you're right that that was a that was let's call it a a seinal story in Vancouver real estate of the student from China that bought you know whatever a 20 million West Point gray mansion from Peter Brown. Yeah. And the and the bank and one of the big five banks gave a mortgage, although apparently a certain amount of a certain quantity of assets was being held within the bank uh as a kind of an offset to this preposterous idea that a part-time cafeteria worker and student would buy a $20 million plus house. Now, that sort of got people, you know, this craziness got people's attention. But what I what you and I want to keep emphasizing is that this effect of creating higher real estate prices based on foreign money was real and it was clear and it was essentially obvious. But you and I and a few others, I can name a few others, Ben Rabidu, a few others. who you and I both know when we talked when we pub posted about this, we said you did your stories, I did my little post on X and Twitter back when and the universal reaction to us was that we're a bunch of racist bastards who are just making this up. I mean, we were just telling stories to vilify a particular community. And we heard that once, we heard it 8,000 times, right? I mean, you and I both heard it constantly. >> Yeah, Ron. I mean, I I could give you a thousand stories, but the salient one is none other than Vancouver mayor at the time, Gregor Robertson, who is our current housing minister. He pushed back against an academic study from a Simon Fraser University data scientist called Andy Yen who documented how these unexplainable mortgages from China were funding, you know, uh, real estate buys across a whole west side of Vancouver. This is a very wealthy neighborhood. And something uh, I don't want to get my figures is something like 30% of the homes were owned now by mainland China. consistent names and the mortgages from major banks and as you pointed to many of the buyers were students or housewives. So again the the lineage between a housewife and a student you can't prove where the money's coming from and Gregor Robertson and his developer friends did come out and say that that study had racial overtones. I remember it like >> Ron I remember it like yesterday and why I say it's salient who's our housing minister in Ottawa now Gregor Robertson he's asked about affordability in parliament and he can't come up with a good answer and I've told you one >> his answer is we don't want any prices to go down but we want people to find houses more affordable that's his answer that's a typical Gregor answer to everything yeah exactly by I I'm sure you picked this up on about a week and a half ago. The reason young people can't buy h can't afford houses in Ontario and British Columbia is because of the war in the Middle East. I'm sure you you caught that one day. >> That that's on top of my mind in my commentary now, Ron. And we could I almost wish I was sharing a beer with you because we could get very Irish here. But my point here is that Gregor Robertson the the the narrative which is fact supported that I'm trying to suggest to you because I know your listeners understand finances. Gregor Robertson I I've I've said uh developers close to him are exposed to Chinese organized crime. I'll say that and I can prove it. So now we've got a housing minister that doesn't have a good answer for affordability. And I don't think he's probably the well, I'll leave it at that. I don't think he's got a good answer. And there's a lot of people in Canada like him that are exposed to very wealthy people from foreign countries that are don't have the interest of Canada or especially its younger generations in mind. >> Well, let's talk about that subject for a minute because you did that great work on uh what was going on in Vancouver. You inspired uh I'm not afraid to say it. You inspired the color commission. Uh all everything you said was vindicated. But now if we start to move into more recent times, we're, you know, what often shocks me is how some incredibly crazy incidents happen about foreign influence and they hit media for a short period of time because they're so incredibly obvious and then everything abruptly quiets and eventually attitudes seem to react like nothing happened. I mean, there were the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party established police stations. They they they sent their own cops to um Toronto and Vancouver. Uh and they were operating as police representing the Chinese Communist Party to threaten those who weren't obeying the party line. AND THERE WAS LIKE THEY were like working out of the back of stores as an actual police station. No one's denying this. This has been proven. And all that happened with the government said, "Well, you guys got to go home. You guys got to go back." Okay. And don't do it again. Tell us about that insanity. >> Yeah, that that that's absolutely true. And to get detailed, I mean, the police stations, they could be in a mansion in in, you know, Richmond, BC or Markhamm, Ontario. They could be in a a soup shop in in Scar Bro. They could be in like a some industrial sort of location in in a any suburb in Canada, Montreal as well. But here's the key, Ron. Yeah. like the government was forced to intervene and knock on those doors after an international NGO called safeguard defenders documented through open documents how China's uh security ministry was directly connected to these people running these quasi you know illegal diplomatic offices which are essentially monitoring and harassing and surveilling the Chinese diaspora. But the key here, Ron, is that the the people running them on the ground in Toronto and Vancouver are uh connected to the Vancouver model. They're the same people I know from illegal casino investigations, governmentproven investigations in the Cullen Commission. Uh they're real estate developers. So, the story doesn't change. that money coming in from China and like ultra wealthy gangsters or corrupt officials from China, they set up, let's just focus on Canada, they do it around the world, but they set up in a city in the west and the Communist Party of China follows them with their security arms and basically they say, "You can keep doing your criminal business. We'll even make you richer. We'll even put you on our our little Chinese Communist Party, you know, uh uh confabs in Beijing. You can fly over from Vancouver and like sit down and look like you're a real official. So, you're a gangster. You're an official for the CCP, but your real job is monitoring the diaspora because the regime, we need to protect oursel. We can't have people going to the Toronto Star and saying Xiinping bad. So, that's the police story and it never ended. what Canada had to had to make it look like those shops were shut down, but the people running them never stopped their activity. And how ridiculous does it get? The RCMP in Montreal, uh, this came up in the Hogue Commission, another commission that stemmed out of my work in Ottawa. And they have, Ron, they have public services uh in the diaspora communities in Montreal that are getting government of Canada funding purportedly offering uh you know um community services to Chinese diaspora immigrants to help them start their life in Canada. But it's the Chinese Communist Party that's like harvesting data from those people. And uh the RCMP had a case. They they they they brought a case forward. I believe they they recommended charges and thea the case disappeared. And I have to wonder whether it was British Columbia Senator Yuen Pau's advocacy for those groups in Montreal calling this like some basically, you know, targeted. >> You mean a senator from Beijing? That's the one you're talking about, right, >> Ron? He it it Yes. You you say it jokingly, but there's there's people that do in government governments around the world from the United States to Australia do see him as Beijing's voice in Canada's Senate. And I'll be reporting more and more uh on Senator Woo based on my open- source documents because you're right, the Canadian media isn't doing its job and looking at the activities of people like Senator Woo. But, you know, it was a long answer to your point. I'm saying the police station story never ended. I believe it's probably that activity is ramping up in Canada under Mark Mark Carney's new dealings or sort of as he calls it strategic re-engagement with Beijing. So the story is just getting worse. Ron, >> now before we we we I think it's useful for us to take just a second to look at an event that happened just last week in the world. Um there was a Donald Trump say what you want about Trump and I'm I'm I'm not a fan but say what you want. He proposed uh a worldwide ban on a fentinol precursor. So they if you had a it was a fentanyl precursor or it was a a meth precursor that he wanted it banned throughout the world and everyone voted in favor. I can't remember it's UN or UN subgroup. Everyone voted in favor until the vote got to the People's Republic of China and they voted against it. They want the the the rules to continue to allow the precursor to keep on in existence, keep on moving around the world. So if there's ever cl if you're ever lacking in clarity about how the Chinese government is fine with destroying Western society through supplying drugs to the West, look no further. I mean there's ample proof like it's straightforward. This is not confusing. Um you've put the ties between the cartels in Mexico and the Chinese triads. you've you've done all that work and it it just has to be understood. The the Chinese government has a connection to criminal elements that work outside of China. That's just the truth. >> That that's the truth. And you're right to there was only one country in the world that voted against this UN counter narcotics resolution. And I've reported in detail for years now. There was a US congressional investigation that proved that China at the senior communist party state level was incentivizing their chemical precursor factories to sell these precursors around the world. So, how they get around sort of uh counter narcotics is they've got they produce millions of tons of the the sublevel chemicals which are then cooked up in labs in Mexico or British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Alberta now to produce fentinel, meth, ecstasy. They sell the the uh pill making factory presses. They sell the dyes. All of it's coming from communist China. And uh this US congressional uh committee in the US which is bipartisan by the way got the evidence that there are senior Chinese Communist Party members that have shares in these chemical precursor companies. They even Ron they even found they found a state-run prison that was producing full fentinel and and mail you know sending it out into the world. Um, so Ron, you're right. This is this is factual. At the US military intelligence and law enforcement level, which I have access to talk to those people, they say fentinel is the CCP. They're profiting off it uh intentionally. They're trying to kill, you know, our our sons and daughters, you know, uh who may uh it's just terrible to think that our our families are the ones that according to the US government, they believe Beijing is intentionally targeting at us with those with those drugs. >> Well, if you know from China's perspective, they would simply say, "Well, we are the biggest chemistry producer in the world. We we dominate the industry. used dumb sons of [ __ ] have given up and let us run it. Um, >> yeah, >> that would be that would be what you would hear. We produce the precursor of everything in China. We produce all chemistry in China. You guys decided you didn't like the uh you didn't like the environmental side of being in the chemical business and we don't give a [ __ ] So, we took it over from all of you. All of you everywhere we took it over from and now we can do whatever the hell we want is essentially the story we're hearing. But but now you had a major victory not too long ago because one of the things that happens in your life is when you point out very crazy uh election chicainery uh in Canadian politics with with help from China to elect specific politicians or at least get them to become candidates for a party for a major party. Somebody sued you about it as I remember correctly and you just you just that case was just thrown out less than a week ago if I'm right. Is that correct? >> Yeah. Um so Ron I'll I'll still be legally cautious. You know as I say >> I get it. I get it. I get it every day too. >> You're right. You're right. As as often or always you're right in what you say there. There's ongoing lawsuits, but a very significant one had targeted myself and a Globe and Mail reporter, Robert Fefe, who after I started breaking stories about election interference, >> followed my work and got some uh got got his own sources. And so, the Glob and Mail did some great reporting and some similar reporting to the the to the stories that I broke on Chinese election interference. And so an individual targeted myself and Robert Fe, not even the news organizations we work for, but targeted >> individuals. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. >> Individually targeting reporters uh wi which was a novel I I understand lawsuit uh and accusing us essentially. I'll I'll I'll sum it up. accusing us of conspiring with Canadian government officials to somehow, you know, uh, you know, produce a story. And I'll just be very, you know, brief and accurate, but a judge found that essentially the finding that jumped out at me was if that lawsuit had been allowed to continue, this would be damaging to Canada's democracy because uh uh confidential sources can and have been an important source for public interest worthy democracy protecting, you know, reporting that points to potential uh problems. s or abuses within our society. And the judge essentially, I think I'm being fair to her ruling, said that uh that that lawsuit was uh strategic and and sort of wrong and it had to be stopped in its tracks because uh Canadians need to know information from responsibly reported journalism that can come from confidential sources. >> Yeah. And at at the end of the day, sometimes a bus full of students does show up uh to vote in one particular way. I mean, that that happens like we can't we sometimes we just have to stick with the facts um that are observable and and that's what gets I know that's what gets to you and I a lot like you can see this stuff doesn't make sense. like the $20 million house and the part-time cafeteria worker. That stuff doesn't make sense to to the naked eye. Like you look at this thing, this is there's something going on here. Uh but we live in a latigious world with judges that um think in a particular way in some cases. Some are great. Don't get me you and I both know that there's great judges and there's the rest of them. Um and uh we see these are just facts uh that when you even allude to a connection you're immediately vilified and and that's >> that's the difficult >> I I I agree so much Ron and I can like tie what you said in a bow like when you when you see young or or under 16year-old students show up in a particular writing to support a particular candidate to the reasonable common sense person, it doesn't make sense. Right? So that's your starting point. But here's the through line, Ron. We talked about a V a Vancouver model real estate money laundering where a Chinese student is used as a front for a purchase. What was discovered by the US Drug Enforcement Administration and their high level investigators in the United States was that Chinese international students were the ones that were carrying bags of cash into New York, New Jersey banks and laundering money. And I could I I think it'll be instructive if I explain a little bit about what the US government found. But essentially what they're saying is these Chinese international students are uh are are used in Chinese Communist Party schemes where uh triad gangsters which are part of Beijing's foreign influence arm, the United Front, the very same entity that kind of involves the police station networks we're talking about. they these uh Chinese Communist Party directed gangsters can tap international students who live under the thumb of Xi Jinping's kind of national intelligence laws. And so there's a whole ecosystem where the students are used in uh political campaigns. They're used in money laundering. They're used to walk cash into casinos, walk cash into New York banks. And the new the US government when it looks at Canada says, "You got a problem." But part of the problem is you've sort of given the blind eye or the cart blanch to one community and said, "Oh, you're not you're from another country, so we're just going to give you the benefit of the doubt." Or, "It's okay. Your community likes to use cash, so we're not going to question that." And that's sort of >> No, it's true, Ron. This is I'm hearing this from senior US government sources, and they say, "Uh, yeah, China does like to leverage, abuse, and use its diaspora." So, that's kind of a sensitive topic, but at the end of the day, this is what we're talking about. The average Canadian can't just task a student to walk cash into the bank and they'll get away with it. >> No, there's a the average Canadian is not filling a hockey bag up full of cash and sending them down to a bank to put the money in. That's 100% true. Um, look, let let's let's look at some of the more recent stuff that is coming to light. So first of all to set the stage uh because I I've I've again this is when it becomes your lived experience when you've sat in the rooms and heard the discussions from people uh and you you you you see it in most obvious way you have to talk about it or if you don't want to talk about it you're just a coward and you're part of the problem. So we know there's a huge thusa again from Iran in Canada and I I want to be really clear about there's two completely separate groups. Yeah, >> there is a much much larger by far far and away the much larger group of Iranian uh immigrants to Canada and and some of them are going back 40 50 years to the fall of the sha um who they are against the current regime and they're the vast majority. There's 400,000 people demonstrated uh in favor of a free Iran here in northern Toronto uh against the regime. um you know there is that they are the vast majority of the people in of the Iranian people in Canada people who are Iranian Canadians in in this country but there is a smaller group an enormously smaller group >> who are actually the families of the clerics of the mullas of the generals and the colonels who are here once again establishing a beach head creating a a a method to transfer monies because let's face it, if you are one of these corrupt officials, cuz most Canadians don't understand this, but about half of the oil wealth of Iran goes into the pockets of um officers in their in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and and various clerics. I mean, that's just the truth. I mean, it's just they they are robbing the the uh Iranian people. I mean, there's a reason that the some of the power grid is so ancient and feeble is that they've been stealing money that could have been used to help. And people don't understand in parts of rural Iran, people are very poor. Okay? It's it's not it's a well educated country, but they're very poor because they the the oil wealth has been stolen by the people who run the country. And one of the things those people learned is from the execution of Saddam and shooting Gaddafi is that it's smart if you better have a way out. Like you better you better establish a way that you can push your money out of the country and run away someday because things might turn the other go the wrong direction. Right? So talk about that story. talk about this uh this relatively small group and the way I come to know about it is that we look at the title of houses sometimes in parts of Toronto and we look at the people who and it's exactly the same as Vancouver. We look at the people and they have no visible income. You know, when we look at the title, we see that it's a $3 million house bought for cash uh by a housewife and a part-time real estate agent who doesn't even make any sense. And by the way, they own another six of those. So, how is this possible? So, we know these. That's how I come to know about it. I come to know about it through sitting at a table at a conference and listening to someone boast about uh providing private mortgages, small private mortgages like to to facilitate the purchase of these houses for Iranians uh because with private at that time the fizzer's gotten fint's gotten smarter about it but at that time to because the down payment was coming from another country through money exchanges like through and you could touch on that for a second, but because why are there more money exchanges on Animal Side Drive in West Vancouver than any place else in Canada? You ask that question someday, but like the um that you know, they told me, yeah, we we don't ask questions about where the down payments coming from. We just supply the mortgages for these people from Mor. And you know, at that point in time, you just just see it. Like it's just it's just clear like you know, like it's like the uh it's like the big short like why are they confessing? They're not confessing. They're boasting. OKAY. >> WHAT'S GOING ON? So So when you see it with your own eyes, >> you know it's real, but it ain't easy to prove. So tell us a little bit about what's going on there. Yeah, I mean that's a great that's a great comparison to the big short because in the big short, you know, how that shoe leather hedge fund kind of investigative reporting style kicking the tires and seeing what's really going on. They'd send their staffer out to, you know, outer whatever suburban California, Florida, and see empty neighborhoods, right? And so or or the waitress that that owns three homes. And that's when your eyes are >> She wasn't a waitress, Sam. She's a >> She's a real estate investor. >> She was a stripper. S, >> right? >> Stripper/hairdresser. Um, >> sure. >> Great great movie. But here's the point. You know, it's the exact same sort of, you know, common sense investigative. Let's see if my eyes can, you know, what my eyes are seeing. Can I make it make sense in my own mind? So, North Toronto, which you mentioned, you could take a walk in certain blocks like my colleague Gary Clement, former RCMP, you know, senior anti-money laundering expert. He has I have you can walk around and see block after block of currency exchanges, right? And, you know, very nearby you see these high-end homes. you know, as you say, you start to dug dig into the titles and you can find, you know, one or two people connected to five or six homes and there's no real logical reason for all those currency shops. And what they're doing, it's the same as the casino story in Vancouver. It's the same as, you know, the student buying a $20 million mansion. It doesn't add up. What they are doing is they are collecting drug cash, you know, either in Montreal or Toronto, driving it back and forth, and you know, through complex transactions, they're allowing people in Iran to sort of uh put some money down with a underground banker/gangster in Iran or Dubai and you know a currency shop in North Toronto when this person from Iran wants to have that money in another country, they drive over to Toronto and they'll get, you know, a a bank draft or a few gold bars or, you know, a good nicely wrapped bank bank quality wrapped $100 bills. So, it's the same money laundering story about these pools of drug cash and corruption money. Whether it's in China and Vancouver, there's a gangster with a a warehouse of cash in Vancouver. Same in China. Same story in Iran. There's a gangster in Iran or Pakistan or Dubai. his brother or cousin in North Toronto runs that currency shop and they're doing what's called informal exchanges of value where the value is adjusted on a uh in someone's mind, someone with a nice memory or a ledger, you know, a double set of books in Dubai, Karach or North Toronto. The money is not wired across. So, you're getting around those sanctions evasions that are put on Iran. you're moving, you know, oil money for the regime. This is where it gets complicated. The Mexican cartels and the Chinese triads are involved in that underground banking, so they get in international trade. You know, this is where the ghost ships of oil from Venezuela. >> Well, like we got to accept the fact that there's one group of tankers that can still get through the straight moose and that's Chinese flag tankers. I mean, that's >> that's it. So this is this is that's a great point. At the end of the day, what I have discovered and you could say how I'm advancing my reporting in iterations daily, weekly, monthly, yearly is when you see the gangsters from China, Iran, the Punjab, Mexico hanging out together or like you know rising up the chain and laundering money in Vancouver and Toronto. Then you start to understand people at high levels in those governments which are not friends of Canada or United States are also working together and in fact directing the gangsters at the lower level. So I'll end my answer here like I that was a you know a little bit of roundway to describe the Iran story but you're absolutely right. the vast majority in Canada completely consistent with the values of the people that migrated when my ancestors did maybe 300 years ago from North Ireland or or Netherlands, right? Same values coming here working hard maybe in some cases getting away from like in my ca my ancestors, you know, might might not like the uh the aristocrats where they came from. In a way, it's a little bit similar to what's going on in Iran, but you point to there are hundreds, it's documented, hundreds of people associated to the Iranian guards now living in Canadian cities and just like the China story, looking over the diaspora in a thuggish way, you know, to protect the regime back home. So, yeah, underground banking, transnational repression, police stations, whether it's Iran, China, it's all consistent. And that's the same story we're talking about. >> Yeah, it is. Again, we have to really point out the vast vast majority of of people from Iran who've come to Canada. They come they came to Canada to get away from the regime. They they're the opponents of the regime. But there is, look, it's just inexplicable. Like it's just exactly as you describe. Where the hell did this hockey bag full of cash for? Where the hell did it come from in the first place? or how the hell why the hell are there 16 money exchanges in three blocks and all these houses owned by people who they don't really work? Okay, they don't work. I mean, it's just that simple. I mean, uh, a buddy of mine was, uh, in West Van always used to ask the same questions like, "How come all of these people living in $8 million homes are receiving checks from the Canadian government for their for their children because they're below the poverty line in terms of income that they file? They live in an $8 million paidoff house." Okay? Like we look, I get it. It's it's a it's it's hard slogging. Like when I look at some of the reporting you've done, it's been difficult. Some of it's a little dangerous. It's it and and people there's a group of people who hate what you do. They hate what you do. There's uh people in politics in Canada who absolutely despise what you do uh and push back on you constantly and and uh vilify you in fact uh for telling these truths, but it's just it's just factual. Uh as much as anybody wants to say it's a bunch of racism or you're wrong or I don't think that's true, I don't the houses are there. Uh, you know, the title of a property is public record. So, when you pull the title and it's a free and clear house worth 5 million bucks that was bought, you know, 10 years ago for cash uh, and there's another six of them and there's nobody actually works uh, in that group, then there has to be a reason for that. And those reasons are hard to find. you did eventually by pushing hard in Vancouver. But the truth is, and you and I know this very well, white collar crime thrives in Canada because between crowns and and regulation and and previous court rulings and judges, white collar crime is a tough tough slog in this country. Financial crimes are really, really difficult, really hard to prove, really hard to get convictions, and therefore the crowns and the cops, they're just not that interested in it. I mean, I think that's a fair statement. Would you say? I mean, I know there are some people are interested in it. Some some of them are ex cops, but is that I think that's a fair statement that this is a great country to do white collar crime. >> It It's absolutely accurate. And I've heard MP Adam Chambers, who is one of the best financial minds in our parliament right now, he's on the financial committee, you know, for the Conservative side, >> and he has openly said, I mean, I I remember he came to the an event for my book, Willful Blindness, once and his speech was, "Has anyone ever gone to gone to jail for financial crime in Canada?" So, this is a person, Adam Chambers, who has visibility on government records. He knows the truth. Ron, you know the truth, and I do. And what I would add is that uh the the white collar crime layer uh yeah there's no justice there but it's working its way down the chain. This is something that I work on now for the bureau on a weekly basis. They can't even get convictions on fentinel traffickers now. These cases are falling apart at an alarming rate you know before they get to trial and the crown won't even explain why. You know, some of it has to do with if we get into the legal weeds, uh, our disclosure laws or strict time limits we put on complex cases. It means that the crown and now the police, they just they can't push these cases into court. And I'm talking about violent. We know people are dying from fentinel. And and Ron, this is a big part of my reporting. This is why the cartels and the triads and all the other bad guys from around the world are setting up in our cities because we're open season for money laundering because we can't convict very bad people and it goes from white collar all the way down to very violent crime. Yeah, that makes so much sense. If if it's really really hard to get a money laundering Oh, by the way, you will we if you're under FINTRA, you will get a bulletin from FINTRA that they assisted the RCMP in catching a uh an Aboriginal casino outside of Saskatoon and find them 144,000. >> Yeah, >> please. Jesus, who cares? I mean, don't be silly, okay? Like I mean, you know, I there's there's nobody running that that hockey bag full of fentanyl dusted money into a casino outside of Saskatoon. I mean, that just nobody want those guys don't want to live there. So, it's that simple. But you know, we have self- congratulatory agencies when in fact when you talk to a crown or get have a couple of drinks with them and talk to the crown or talk to uh the people who are trying to pursue these cases, they'll just tell you Ron, it's too hard. It's just too hard. The there there are exactly what you said. The time frames to to produce evidence are too short. The disclosure requirements are off the charts compared with other countries. >> Yes. >> And again, that's based on prior judges decisions. I mean, we do have a judicial problem in Canada. There are some great judges, but there's a ton of I don't know who the hell these guys and gals are, but they are are are producing [ __ ] decisions. Okay? and the that that that at a certain point the people who are there to catch the bad guys say, "Well, if you're just going to let him go or you're just going to throw the case out, we're not going to we there's no sense in us working that hard anymore." And that's been a that's we've I've seen that. You've seen it. It's a through point in all of this financial crime uh in terms of prosecution >> a thousand% and it's come out in the Ryan wedding case which Ron I think Ryan Wedding if if anything can break through to the Canadian mind that is kind of ignoring my reporting or broadly doesn't understand how this country is kind of spiraling. Ryan Wedding, you know, a former Olympian who'd be the apple of anyone's eye, you know, if he had stayed the course, has become a senior Cenoloa cartel boss. And, you know, it it the the reason is because we can't prosecute Mexican cartels. uh you know his I I've documented Ron that a number of big cases connected to Ryan wedding and the cartels fell apart in Alberta and Ontario just for the reasons I'm talking about. People would have a hard time understanding how you can have the biggest seizure in Toronto connected to cartels. Uh in 2023 there was a case called Project Briea. you know, the Toronto police rolled out these semi-trailers and, you know, said we we we busted the cartels, but the case fell apart before trial specifically because of disclosure rules and time limits. And this is why the American government, including my sources, are looking at Canada and saying, "You can't prosecute your own criminals who are connected to the cartels." And as our friend Steven Punwasi notes along with myself, suddenly we see this Toronto Police Services corruption case which comes out and uh as I've reported there's a link to Ryan wedding. It it's only coming out now it looks like because uh there was a a Canadian jail official targeted for murder by this cartel group. So, okay. Yeah, York Regional Police have said enough's enough, but that's one case. And it's just like it absolutely is the wild west out there. Contrary to what our is he still our justice minister, uh Fraser from out east. I don't know what his current portfolio is. He has said it's not the Wild West out there. You know, we don't need to change the laws. I'm sorry, Mr. Fraser. It is the Wild West. >> Yeah, you're right. By the way, anybody who's not following Steven Penoy on X, they absolutely should. Not only is it is his stuff incredibly insightful, it's also funny as [ __ ] I mean, like, he he is he's just brilliant at what he does. There's no question about it. So, the look, this is, you know what? You know what my favorite actually was, Sam? My favorite favorite of all these cases is the task force takes down a mansion, a huge mansion on a massive acreage outside of just out outside of Markham in in northern northern Toronto. And there is an active casino going on. There is the the the g the cryp the game tables are there. There's money stacked up to the sky. There's sex workers. There's uh there's there's guns. There's uh you name it. Like every possible aspect of a fullfledged go crazy town casino is they caught him in the act. Okay. All all effectively all Chinese players. few few others, but that's effectively what it was. And uh 6 months later, the judge throws it out and says, you know, the these two cops over here, I mean, they didn't follow the right rules on wiretapping, so everybody goes home and you you guys we're going to give you your money back. Okay. Um at that moment in time, I realized something's wrong here. May maybe not even just the courts. Maybe there are some people in law enforcement who may be supportive of the huge money that deres from all these criminal activities. >> Yeah, that's a really complex story. 52 room mansion, five Dorsy court, Northern Markham. You're right. The case falls apart. And an interesting detail uh you know the the boutique law firm uh that that represented the man named way we who was behind this casino. There's all kinds of details that I won't get into them all but yeah Canada Canadian intelligence had a concern that Canadian politicians could have been corrupted inside. As I say this is part of Chinese Communist Party operations. They use gangsters to target Canadian officials. It's like the Jeffrey Epstein story but in a Markham mansion. But here's the kicker that you you drew the through line. Is there corruption there? The man's, you know, $300,000 P or whatever watch disappears from a York Regional Police evidence cage. And uh that's part of the reason the case doesn't go to trial. It's like, "Oh, something bad happened. Ron, what are we talking about? We're talking about the potential of corruption within Okay. York Regional Police, Toronto Police Services. You got people that are working for cartels and triads. Could there be a case where someone working for this Chinese gangster said, "Hey, York Regional Police, can you maybe go into the evidence locker, mess around a little bit, and mess up this case, and hey, what do you know? It falls apart." I'm not that is that's that is speculative logic but it doesn't come from my mind. It comes from the mind of police and intelligence sources that I've talked to. Right. And so that story's never come out. But you're right. It's like my eyes are telling me why are all these cases falling apart? Why can't we convict Ryan wedding in Canada? these Chinese tribes in Vancouver, these uh Calabrian mafia people that we've not talked about yet in Vaughan, we can't convict them in Canada, so something stinks. >> Something's going on. Listen, Sam, I've got your respect for your time, but thank you. I mean, thank you. Thank you for the work you do. Um, look, Sam Cooper's easy to find. If you can find him, uh, just subscribe. That's all I can tell you. Just subscribe. It's a people who are telling the truth need support in this country. That's just real. And and Sam, thank you. Um you're kind of a hero of mine. So, thanks very much for coming on the show and uh keep out at it, man. Keep at it. Keep fighting the good fight. >> Thanks, Ron. You're you're heroic on X and I've I've told you so. I've we've come to each other's defense maybe once or twice online. So, I appreciate you and uh really enjoy talking to you. >> Thanks again. If you like the pod, well, don't just sit there. Go to YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and all the other ones and like the pod. And don't forget to subscribe so we can keep being angry at mortgages and swearing about mortgages. Angry Mortgage could use your US support.