FEBRUARY 4, 2018
In December 2015, a new leg of the RCMP’s E-Pirate money-laundering investigation delved into Metro Vancouver’s underworld of fentanyl labs, gun sales and violent dial-a-dope gangs. It started with undercover officers tracking the movements of a Burnaby man named Ge ‘Gary’ Wang.
The offshoot investigation, code-named Prophet, grew from extensive surveillance of the many alleged employees of E-Pirate’s primary target, Paul King Pao Jin. In E-Pirate, the RCMP and B.C. government documents allege a network of organized criminals established a massive underground banking channel between Richmond and Mainland China, using VIP gamblers from Macau to buy chips, mostly at River Rock Casino, in order to launder hundreds of millions in drug cash. The operation allowed ultra-wealthy Chinese businessmen, some allegedly with ties to organized crime, to move money from China to Canada while evading China’s tight capital export controls.
