LILLEY: U.S. arrest warrant alleges deep Canadian ties to fentanyl trade

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A shipment of 100 kg of fentanyl precursor chemicals a month from Vancouver to Los Angeles; that was the promise allegedly made to an undercover agent.

A newly released arrest warrant that hasn’t been tested in court shows the alleged international ties of a British Columbia drug kingpin and how narcotics move freely across borders. The warrant, issued by a California district court for the arrest of Opinder Singh Sian, alleges connections to Canadian, Chinese, Turkish, Mexican and Irish organized crime groups, including the Kinahan cartel which has ties to the terrorist group Hezbollah.

Sian is a Canadian national and a resident of Surrey, B.C., but was arrested last month in Nevada on charges of trying to ship methamphetamine from the United States to Australia through the Port of Long Beach, just outside of Los Angeles. The information in the affidavit sworn by agent Albert Polito of the Drug Enforcement Administration reads like a Hollywood script and, if the allegations are true, blows apart the idea that Canada is not a source country for fentanyl and other drugs destined for the United States and elsewhere.

Some of the alleged details described in the affidavit: Meth sourced from Montreal contacts was traded in Los Angeles for shipment to Australia; requests for bulk cocaine purchases in Los Angles for distribution in Vancouver; promises of substantial shipments of fentanyl precursor chemicals from China into the Port of Vancouver and then shipped to Los Angeles via a Canadian trucking company.

There’s a Toronto connection as well with one of those named allegedly shipping hundreds of pounds of meth through various ports and channels around the world, while reporting to bosses in Hong Kong and working with members of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.

The whole operation allegedly started after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency got a tip from their field office in Ankara, Turkey, about the chance to put a confidential source into a global drug-trafficking ring. That allegedly led to the connection with Sian and drug-smuggling operations that spanned four continents and at least eight countries.

Sian, the Canadian living in Surrey and doing business around the world, was allegedly at the centre of this, according to the DEA.

According to the affidavit, Sian took the DEA’s confidential source, known as Queen, out for lunch with his family on Aug. 16, 2023. After the lunch, Sian and Queen went to a cafe where they met with a man named Peter Peng Zhou, who allegedly made the bold promise of providing the precursor chemicals that fentanyl is made from.

“ZHOU said that he would be getting the precursors from China in Vancouver and send them to Los Angeles, via his trucking company,” the affidavit alleges, adding that Zhou promised that he could send 100 kg per month.

Postmedia reported other B.C. suspects named in the U.S. case have not yet been charged.

Sian and other associates also allegedly offered to provide Queen with these chemicals, either shipped through Canada or directly to the Port of Long Beach. The affidavit contains discussions about shipping fentanyl chemicals by mail and methods used to avoid detection.

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This affidavit and the charges against Sian, if proven, back up the claims made by the Americans. Like too many toddlers with oppositional disorder, Canadians have been denying that there is any issue in Canada and have refused to look at the facts.

Concerns in Washington about Canada and fentanyl didn’t originate with U.S. President Donald Trump as the Biden administration raised concerns. We have super labs that have been busted, we have sophisticated smuggling networks that take drugs in both directions and Canada has been used as a hub for laundering drug money from the trade of fentanyl and other narcotics.

The opioid epidemic, driven in large part by fentanyl, is a scourge in Canada that has killed close to 50,000 people since 2016. We should be taking it seriously to protect our own people, but instead we are pretending it doesn’t exist because Trump mentioned it.

Time for us to grow up, do what is right and dismantle the kinds of operations the Americans just pointed us to in the allegations contained in the search warrant.