U.S. officials urge Canada to start tackling big, systemic problems with organized crime.

By Alexander Panetta | CBC News

Summary

The Canadian government is considering deploying helicopters and drones at the border to curb fentanyl shipments in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s threat of severe economic tariffs. However, Trump ally David Asher (a senior financial crime investigator in President Trump’s first administration), argues that Canada needs to do much more, advocating for substantive systemic changes. Asher, who has worked on fentanyl policy for Trump, emphasizes the need for new laws on racketeering, money laundering, and intelligence-sharing to combat international criminal networks that use Canada as a back office, he says.

Asher calls Canada’s role in the fentanyl trade more significant than acknowledged, citing cases of money laundering and the use of Canadian-based encrypted communications by criminal networks.

“We’ve been informing the Canadian government of this for years,” Asher told a security summit in Vancouver last month in reference to the Triad gangs in Toronto and Vancouver that act as “command and control” centers for laundering vast amounts of cash stockpiled across North America by Mexican cartels, which distribute deadly opioids on behalf of Chinese mafias. “We’ve had very little co-operation, frankly,” said Asher. “And it’s time, I think, with Donald Trump’s threat of a tariff, that your prime minister and others take action.”

The situation is further complicated by the fact that while Canada accounts for a small percentage of fentanyl seized by the U.S., there is evidence of growing production and export of fentanyl from Canada. Asher calls for the implementation of laws similar to the U.S. RICO statute and the U.S. Patriot Act’s Section 311, as well as better use of intelligence in criminal cases. He believes that more aggressive border legislation could improve Canada’s relations with Trump and address the fentanyl crisis effectively.

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