CCP, Russia, Iran Collaborating With Cartels to Smuggle Fentanyl Into US Through Canada: FBI Director
FBI Director Kash Patel says the flow of fentanyl into the United States is coming from his country's northern neighbour. He says China, Russia, and Iran are partnering with cartels to smuggle the drug into the United States via Vancouver.
Patel told Fox News that the Chinese Communist Party and the regimes in Russia and Iran are responsible for the influx of fentanyl pouring into his country. He said hostile regimes like Beijing, Tehran, and Moscow are collaborating with criminal organizations to smuggle fentanyl across the Canada-U.S. border following President Donald Trump's sealing of America's southern border with Mexico.
'They're sailing around to Vancouver and coming in by air,' Patel said during an
'You know who has to step in? It's Canada, because they're making it up there and shipping it down here,' he said.
'I don't care about getting into this debate of making someone the 51st state or not, but they are our partner in the north. And say what you want about Mexico, but they helped us seal the southern border. The facts speak for themselves.'
With Vancouver being identified by the FBI as a problem area, B.C. Conservative MLA and public safety critic Elenore Sturko is calling on Premier David Eby's NDP government to implement a provincial fentanyl strategy, appoint a bipartisan provincial drug task force on drug trafficking, and launch two public inquiries.
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'The FBI has issued a warning to Canada to prepare in the event that we see an increase in the production of fentanyl and other deadly drugs as a result of American enforcement on their southern border with Mexico,' she said in a
A 2024
There are 235 criminal organizations engaged in fentanyl-related activities, with 35 of these groups participating in the export of domestically manufactured drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine, according to the report.
Sturko said immediate action should be taken by the B.C. government to deal with the fentanyl issue.
'It's never been more important for us to take action on illicit drug production in British Columbia,' she said.
Drug Concerns
The comments from Patel and Sturko come just days after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) released its 2025
The law enforcement agency says Mexican cartels are capitalizing on the relative ease of the production of synthetic drugs compared with traditional plant-based drug production to generate immense revenues, primarily sourcing the necessary precursor chemicals from China and India. They maintain a 'complex and robust' network—couriers, border tunnels, and stash houses—to smuggle all of the major illicit drugs into the United States via air and maritime cargo as well as overland traffic, the DEA said.
Canada was named in the DEA report as a destination point for shipments of precursor chemicals as well as a source of 'growing concern' due to 'elevated synthetic drug production' occurring there, particularly from sophisticated fentanyl
The production of fentanyl and its illicit smuggling across borders by Canadian criminal organizations has been a point of contention between the United States and Canada for several months.
Trump levied 25 percent
White House senior adviser Peter Navarro has
Canada has
The Prime Minister's Office
According to the DEA's 2025
Precursor Chemicals
But China analysts say the statistics on northern border drug seizures do not account for the Beijing-linked fentanyl precursor operations that are based in Canada.
'It doesn't have to be that border services at the U.S. [bust] a big load of finished fentanyl,' author and investigative journalist Sam Cooper
Once these precursor chemicals are brought into the country, they predominantly find their way to superlabs located across Canada, especially in the Western provinces. 'Superlabs' is the term used by the RCMP to describe the clandestine synthetic drug production facilities, which are 'large-scale, highly organized labs generally tied to organized crime where drugs are produced for the purpose of wholesale trafficking.'
Federal investigators in British Columbia said they dismantled the 'largest, most sophisticated' drug-production lab in Canadian history last fall, dealing what they described as a 'decisive blow' to a major transnational organized crime group operating in the province.
Pacific Region RCMP Assistant Commissioner David Teboul
Several million more 'potentially lethal doses of fentanyl'
The police said it was not known where the drugs would have been shipped, but a June 2024
The report identified China as the largest source country for illegal fentanyl and chemical precursors exported to Canada and North America since 2015.
Noé Chartier, Riley Donovan, and Omid Ghoreishi contributed to this report.
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Atlantic
27 minutes ago
- Atlantic
The White House Is Delighted With Events in Los Angeles
The last time President Donald Trump tried to send military forces into American streets to put down civil unrest, in June 2020, Pete Hegseth was positioned outside the White House with a Kevlar helmet and riot shield. Major Hegseth's mobilization as part of a District of Columbia National Guard unit summoned to restore order in the nation's capital, where protests had erupted following the police murder of George Floyd, occurred as Pentagon leaders scrambled to avert what they feared could be a confrontation between active-duty U.S. forces and their fellow Americans. Today, Hegseth is second only to the president in directing the administration's use of the National Guard and active-duty Marines to respond to unrest over immigration raids in Los Angeles. And this time, the military's civilian leadership isn't acting as a brake on Trump's impulse to escalate the confrontation. The Hegseth-led Pentagon is an accelerant. The administration's decision to federalize 4,000 California National Guard forces, contrary to Governor Gavin Newsom's wishes, and to dispatch 700 active-duty Marines to the Los Angeles area, marks a break with decades of tradition under which presidents have limited their use of the military on American soil. If there are any internal misgivings about busting through yet another democratic norm, they haven't surfaced publicly. Indeed, officials at the White House told us they are satisfied with the way the L.A. confrontation has unfolded. They believe that it highlights their focus on immigration and law and order, and places Democrats on the wrong side of both. One widely circulated photo—showing a masked protester standing in front of a burning car, waving a Mexican flag—has been embraced by Trump supporters as a distillation of the conflict: a president unafraid to use force to defend an American city from those he deems foreign invaders. 'We couldn't have scripted this better,' said a senior White House aide granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations. 'It's like the 2024 election never ended: Trump is strong while Democrats are weak and defending the indefensible.' Democrats, of course, take a different view, and say the administration's actions have only risked triggering further violence. Retired officers who study how the armed forces have been used in democracies told us they share those concerns. They point to the damage that Trump's orders could do to the military's relationship with the citizens it serves. 'We should be very careful, cautious, and even reluctant to use the military inside our country,' Bradley Bowman, a former Army officer who heads the defense program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, told us. Conor Friedersdorf: Averting a worst-case scenario in Los Angeles State and local authorities typically use law-enforcement personnel as a first response to civil disturbances or riots, followed by National Guard forces if needed. Retired Major General Randy Manner, who served as acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau during the Obama administration, said the federalizing of California Guard forces—putting them under presidential rather than state control, a move allowed with certain limits—pulls those service members away from their civilian jobs and makes it harder to complete planned training or exercises. 'Basically, the risk does not justify the investment of these forces, and it will negatively impact on readiness,' Manner told us. Retired officers we spoke with also drew a distinction between the involvement of National Guard and active-duty forces. Whereas National Guard troops assist citizens after natural disasters and have the advantage of knowing the communities they serve, active-duty forces are primarily trained to 'see the enemy and neutralize the enemy,' said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'When you're dealing with U.S. citizens, no matter what they're doing, that's not the right mindset.' 'This is not Fallujah,' Bowman added. 'This is Los Angeles.' Juliette Kayyem: Trump's gross misuse of the National Guard This morning, Hegseth made his first congressional appearance since his bruising confirmation process, appearing before a House committee. His tone with Democrats was at times combative. When Representative Betty McCollum, a Minnesota Democrat, asked the defense secretary what the cost of the California deployment would be, he declined to provide a figure and instead pivoted to criticism of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for the state's response to the violence that followed Floyd's killing in 2020. (Military officials said later they expected the Los Angeles deployment, as envisioned, to cost roughly $134 million.) 'If you've got millions of illegals, you don't know where they're coming from, they're waving flags from foreign countries and assaulting police officers, that's a problem,' Hegseth told lawmakers. Trump, for his part, told reporters that anyone who tries to protest at the Saturday parade celebrating the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army will 'be met with very big force.' He also said that he wouldn't hesitate to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would permit him to employ the military for law enforcement or to suppress a rebellion, if he believed that circumstances required. Speaking to troops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina later in the day, the president promised to stop the 'anarchy' in California. ' We will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean, and safe again,' he said. 'We will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy.' Some Republicans have privately expressed worry that Trump may overplay a winning hand. Even in the West Wing, two people we spoke with tried to downplay the incendiary rhetoric from Trump and Hegseth. They stressed that, to this point, National Guard forces have been in a defensive posture, protecting federal buildings. Although they believe that Trump has the political advantage at the moment, they acknowledged there would be real risks if U.S. troops got involved in violence. 'We don't know who would get blamed but no one wins if that happens,' one senior aide told us. 'No one wants to see that.' Hegseth's support for using active-duty troops in Los Angeles stands in contrast to what his predecessor did in 2020. At that time, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, scrambled to block Trump's desire to employ active-duty forces against the demonstrators protesting racial violence. The president had mused about shooting protesters in the legs, Esper wrote later. To satisfy his boss while also avoiding a dangerous confrontation, the defense chief called active-duty forces from Fort Bragg to Northern Virginia but sought to keep them out of the fray. Tom Nichols: Trump is using the National Guard as bait In his 2024 book The War on Warrior s, Hegseth described how his experience as a D.C. Guardsman in 2020 crystallized his views about the divide between military personnel and what he saw as the degenerate protesters who were lobbing bricks and bottles of urine at the citizen soldiers. When the D.C. Guard was again summoned seven months later, to help secure the 2021 inauguration following the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Hegseth was told to stand down because fellow Guardsmen suspected that one of his tattoos was a sign of extremism. (Hegseth has maintained it is part of his Christian faith.) Hegseth was angered by his exclusion and resigned from the Guard. That experience remains with him as he attempts to reshape the military, and its role in society, in line with Trump's worldview. As he has written: 'My trust for this Army is irrevocably broken.'
Los Angeles Times
28 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Protesters gather at Santa Ana federal building: ‘This is the healthiest thing to do'
In Santa Ana, about 120 protesters gathered outside a federal building near City Hall on Monday afternoon. Multiple raids had been conducted across Santa Ana that morning, including at Home Depots and restaurants and in industrial areas of the city. 'I feel enraged,' said Councilmember Jessie Lopez, standing with the crowd. 'If [U.S. Atty.] Bill Essayli cares about criminals, he should start at the White house.' Essayli last week sent a letter to Santa Ana, warning the sanctuary city about its proposal to pass a resolution that would require the Santa Ana Police Department to inform residents whenever they received a courtesy call from Immigration and Customs Enforcement alerting them about upcoming raids. Bethany Anderson was with a group of friends from Fullerton, where they had been receiving calls Monday. They were standing in front of a driveway that led to a small gated garage where unmarked white vans had been driving in and out all day. 'I knew they would bring people here' to the federal building, said Anderson, who is accredited by the Department of Justice as a legal representative. 'This is not a jail, so we have no idea about the quality of conditions inside, so that's very worrisome. Suddenly, she saw movement in the driveway and grabbed the bullhorn hanging from her shoulder. 'We see you!' Anderson shouted as protesters screamed, 'Shame!' and rushed to see what was going on. 'We see you, private security guards! You don't have to do this!' The Orange County Rapid Response Network posted addresses and photos of locations where ICE had conducted raids in Fountain Valley. The group's co-director, Casey Conway, said he was happy to see so many people show up in Santa Ana. 'But this isn't just today. This has been every day for three weeks. We're super overwhelmed right now.' The crowd held pro-immigrant and anti-Trump signs and waved Mexican flags. Someone passed around bottled waters and masks as a young woman chanted on a bullhorn, 'Move ICE, get out the way!' to artist Ludacris' song 'Move.' Federal police stood by the building's entrance, where some took photos of the crowd. When they went back inside, the crowd started chanting, '¡Quiere llorar!' — 'He wants to cry,' a common insult among Mexican soccer and rock fans. Alicia Rojas looked on from the edge of a sidewalk. The Colombian native had her amnesty application denied in the federal building as a child. 'This is all triggering,' said the 48-year-old artist. Now a U.S. citizen, Rojas grew up in Mission Viejo during the era of Prop. 187 and remembered all the racism against people like her at the time. Seeing so many young people out to protest made her 'hopeful, but I'm also worried. I've seen how the response has been to these peaceful protests. This administration has no capacity to be American.' She looked on. 'I feel rage inside, but this is the healthiest thing to do. More than anything. I'm here to look after the kids.' As the vans came in and out throughout the afternoon, activists at first blocked them but later backed down when federal agents shot pepper balls into the ground. Among those hit was Conway, who rushed to the side to have their reddened eyes washed out with water. 'I need someone to be on deescalation,' Conway gasped. The task fell to Tui Dashark. Dressed in neon green Doc Martens, an olive hat and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt, he led the crowd through chants including 'No firman nada' (Don't sign anything). 'Please stop throwing water bottles,' Dashark said at one point. 'They're just water bottles to us. But to them, it's assault with a deadly weapon.' The crowd calmed down. 'I'm proud of you guys for not escalating,' Dashark said. 'You're the f— real ones.' He turned to the gate driveway, where federal agents had quietly returned. 'You're so cool man,' Dashark said in a sarcastic voice as the crowd laughed. ' I wonder, what kind of person is up thinking, 'I want to lock up kids as a career?' As the day continued, the situation eventually evolved into the old children's game of Red Rover: Protesters would get too close and throw water bottles, federal agents would shoot pepper balls and eventually escalate to flash-bang grenades and tear gas. After a couple of hours, the crowd moved a couple of hundred feet to the east to Sasscer Park, named after a Santa Ana police officer killed in the 1960s by a member of the Black Panther Party. Local activists call it Black Panther Park. By 5 p.m., the protesters numbered at least 500. T-shirts emblazoned with logos of beloved Santa Ana Chicano institutions colored the scene: Suavecito. Gunthers. Funk Freaks. Santa Ana High. El Centro Cultural de México. People took turns on bullhorns to urge calm and to unite. But then another protester saw federal agents gathering at the federal building again. 'We gotta make them work overtime!' a young woman proclaimed on a bullhorn. 'They don't make enough money. let's go back!' The crowd rushed back to the federal building. Eventually, Santa Ana police officers arrived to create a line and declare an unlawful assembly. For the next four hours, the scene was akin to a party broken up occasionally by tear gas and less-than-lethal projectiles. Cars cruised on nearby streets blasting Rage against the Machine, sierreño music and the tunes of Panteón Rococó, a socialism-tinged Mexican ska group. Someone used AutoTune to shout profanities against the police, drawing giggles from the overwhelmingly Gen Z crowd. A Latina woman who gave her name only as Flor arrived with her teenage daughter. It was their first protest. 'We live in a MAGA-ass town and saw this on television,' Flor said. 'I grew up just down the street from here. No way can we let this happen here.' Nearby, Giovanni Lopez blew on a loud plastic horn. It was his first protest as well. 'I'm all for them deporting the criminals,' said the Santa Ana resident. He wore a white poncho bearing the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. 'But that's not what they're doing. My wife is Honduran and she's not a citizen. She's scared to go to her work now even though she's legal. I told her not to be afraid.' The Santa Ana police slowly pushed the protesters out of Sasscer Park. Some, like Brayn Nestor, bore bloody welts from the rubber bullets that had hit them. 'Does someone have a cigarette?' he asked out loud in Spanish. The Mexico City native said he was there to 'support the raza, güey.' He was in obvious pain, but the trademarks arachidonic humor of his native city still bubbled through. 'It's chido [cool] that they hit me,' he proclaimed to anyone who would listen. 'Es perro, güey [it's cool, dog]. So the world knows what jerks those pigs are.'
New York Post
28 minutes ago
- New York Post
Biden admin evacuated 55 Afghans on terror watchlist to US during botched withdrawal: DOJ watchdog
US officials encountered 55 Afghan evacuees on the terrorist watchlist after the Biden administration's chaotic 2021 withdrawal from the Middle Eastern country, according to a Justice Department inspector general report. The report, released Tuesday, confirmed longstanding suspicions from Republican lawmakers that the Biden administration failed to properly vet US-bound refugees as the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan. 'I've sounded the alarm about the need to thoroughly vet Afghan evacuee applicants since August 2021,' Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement, reacting to the DOJ IG report. 'The Biden-Harris administration, my Democrat colleagues in Congress and many in the media were quick to dismiss glaring red flags that a nonpartisan national security analysis now confirms.' 3 Grassley charged that the Biden administration endangered the lives of Americans by allowing improperly vetted Afghan refugees into the US. AP The FBI's Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) identified 55 Afghans that were either already on the terrorist watchlist and made it to a US port of entry or were added to the database during the evacuation and resettlement process, the report found. Of those, at least 21 were added to the terror list after they had already entered the US. After investigations, the FBI eventually removed 46 evacuees from the watchlist, determining that they posed no threat to the homeland. However, nine remained in the terror database as of July 2024 and eight were in the US. 'As if it wasn't already obvious, the Biden-Harris administration endangered American lives by allowing suspected terrorists to enter the United States and roam free for years,' Grassley argued, noting that his 'oversight of this matter will continue.' Roughly 90,000 Afghans were allowed entry into the US and became eligible for Special immigrant Visas under the Biden administration's Operation Allies Refuge (OAR) and Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) programs, which provided the foreign nationals immigration processing and resettlement support. 'According to the FBI, the need to immediately evacuate Afghans overtook the normal processes required to determine whether individuals attempting to enter the United States pose a threat to national security, which increased the risk that bad actors could try to exploit the expedited evacuation,' the DOJ IG report stated. Despite the 55 individuals flagged, the DOJ inspector general determined that overall 'each of the responsible elements of the FBI effectively communicated and addressed any potential national security risks identified.' 3 The Biden administration hastily evacuated tens of thousands of Afghans as the country fell to the Taliban in 2021. AFP via Getty Images 3 As of July 2024, eight Afghans on the FBI's terror watchlist were still in the United States. AP Last October, the DOJ charged an Afghan national brought into the US during the chaotic withdrawal with plotting an ISIS-inspired Election Day terror attack. Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, was living in Oklahoma City on a Special Immigrant Visa as he took steps to stockpile AK-47 rifles and ammunition to carry out an attack on US soil 'in the name of ISIS,' according to the Justice Department. Tawhedi entered the US on Sept. 9, 2021, just weeks after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan and the last US troops departed from the war-torn nation. Tawhedi was charged with conspiring and attempting to provide material support to ISIS and is currently awaiting trial.
