Thread by @scoopercooper

BC #publicinquiry EXCLUSIVE : Kwok Chung Tam, the alleged ‘heavyweight’ Big Circle Boys opioid trafficker and Richmond casino loan shark, could be poster child for BC inquiry into #vanre real estate money laundering globalnews.ca/news/5277136/a… #bcpoli @jonmccomb980 @BC1 @globalnews

2. Kwok Chung TAM, aka Guocong TAN, (on his authentic PRC passport) has been successfully fighting deportation for over 25 years. And according to recent court filings, Tam is believed to be residing in a luxury Richmond condo.

3. “The Asian crime cartel was so powerful that police said it could stockpile heroin and dictate the street price of the drug in North America,” Tam’s investigative file with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said.

4. “Its members, who had connections to underground banks in Hong Kong and the poppy fields of Burma, do not hesitate to eliminate obstructions." Now, police sources allege, with connections to the fentanyl factories of Guangdong, they dominate Canada's deadly fentanyl market.

5. In 1999, Tam was charged in Victoria with conspiracy to import and traffic heroin in a case police said had connections to Vancouver, Thailand, Hong Kong and Las Vegas. Acquitted of these charges in 2002, because a judge found wiretap evidence in the case was inadmissible.

6. The newly-discovered CBSA files submitted as part of Tam’s immigration case also suggest Tam and the Big Circle Boys may have been connected to a notorious casino licensing scandal in B.C. that involved former B.C. premier Glen Clark.

7. “One of them, a loan shark banned from B.C. casinos, was also brazen enough to have his picture taken with the former premier, Glen Clark, while seeking to open a casino,” the CBSA report alleged, referring to alleged Big Circle Boys heavyweight "loan shark Kwok Chung Tam."

8. Another stunning allegation in the CBSA files ties Tam to a Macau casino gang war that spilled onto the streets of Vancouver in July 1997.

9. “The interesting fact I learned in this whole thing is that Tam is the one who allegedly tried to do Lai, a permanent resident I am also working on,” a CBSA enforcement officer said. “Tam is Big Circle Boys, as you know, Lai is the head of the Wo On Lok Triad out of Macau.”

10. “Det. Fisher with the (Vancouver Police Department) stated that Mr. Tam is a known member of the Big Circle Boys … involved in importing opium, loan sharking and heroin trafficking,” the CBSA report said.

11. For almost as long as he’s lived in Canada, law enforcement officials have been trying to deport Kwok Chung Tam.

12. The first of Tam’s deportation orders was issued in October 1993, court records show. The most recent, based on his criminal convictions, was issued in June 2014.

13. Despite all this, Department of Justice lawyers, working on behalf of the immigration minister, struck two separate deals with Tam between June 2016 and November 2017.

14. “Mr. Tam has instructed us to caution you regarding allegations of participation in organized crime and, in particular, gang membership,” a statement from Tam’s lawyer to Global News said.

15. Court records — which include copies of Tam’s 1996 failed refugee decision — show he sent his then-wife, Chui Lin Yip, more than $500,000 “in various stages through a friend residing in Hong Kong” to a bank account in Vancouver before coming to Canada.

16. Yip, who arrived in Vancouver with the couple’s one-year-old daughter and claimed refugee protection five months before Tam, also has multiple criminal convictions in Canada. According to court files, these include convictions for extortion and credit card fraud.

17. As for their wealth, Kwok Chung Tam claimed the money he sent his wife before arriving in Canada was earned by selling his family’s assets in southern China, records show. This included a hair salon, a pool hall and a factory.

18. But as early as 1991, Canadian immigration officials were aware of Tam’s alleged “criminal endeavours” and his growing real estate footprint in Vancouver.

19. “In Canada less than four years as refugee claimant — owns (three homes and an auto business in Vancouver) mortgage-free even though he has not worked and declared no (personal) wealth,” a citizen and immigration memo said.

20. The record lists two homes in Vancouver and one in Burnaby, “Sunning Auto Sales” in Vancouver and “numerous vehicles, including several late-model BMWs/Mercedes.” Tam was targeted for alleged “heroin importation/trafficking” by @RCMPFederalGRC in the early 1990s.

21. Tam was “heavily involved in alien smuggling, credit card fraud, illegal gambling and weapons,” the documents alleged.

22. “Subject owns a car dealership, his cars were supplied by extortion,” a CBSA enforcement officer alleged in an email. “He and his minions hang out at casinos and approach fellow Chinese who need $$$ for betting and give them loans at loan shark rates."

23. Then when they cannot pay … collects their cars and in one case, the house.

24. Police executed a search warrant on Yip and Tam’s home and claimed to have found over $200,000 in uncashed cheques written out to Tam from alleged extortion victims, along with Walther PPK and Ruger semi-automatic pistols, a silencer, a Taser and ammunition.

“In addition to the stolen goods and weapons, a pound of raw heroin and caches used to stamp heroin for sale stating it was 100 per cent pure” were found and seized, according to CBSA’s officer Cheryl Shapka @csiscanada

26. A document addressed to CSIS, points to Kwok Chung Tam's alleged new alias on an authentic PRC passport.

27. As late as 2007, Shapka was still probing Tam’s alleged connections.

28. “VPD found and seized a whole bunch of photographs taken of Tam, including one where Tam was shaking (Glen) Clark’s hand in his office and one where Tam was shaking hands or standing with the King of Thailand,” Shapka wrote in an email.

29. But where these photographs, which a VPD officer kept in his desk for some reason according to documents, is not known. Shapka said she had personally seen the photos, and “I know a lot of other people saw the photos. Do you have any idea what happened to them?”

More to come.