By Jennifer Cowan, editor of The Epoch Times
FBI Director Kash Patel says the flow of fentanyl into the United States is coming from his country’s northern neighbor. He alleges that China, Russia and Iran are working with cartels to smuggle the drug into the United States through Vancouver.
Patel told Fox News that the Chinese Communist Party and the Russian and Iranian regimes are responsible for the influx of fentanyl into his country. He said hostile regimes like Beijing, Tehran and Moscow are working with criminal organizations to smuggle fentanyl across the Canada-U.S. border after President Donald Trump closed the United States’ southern border with Mexico.
“They sail to Vancouver and fly there,” Patel said in an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that aired on May 18. The FBI is focusing on fentanyl crossing the border and is calling on state and local law enforcement partners to address the problem, he said, noting that the Canadian government needs to do more.
“You know who has to step in? It’s Canada, because they produce it up there and ship it down here,” he said.
“I’m not interested in getting into this debate about whether or not someone will become the 51st state, but they are our partners to the north. And say what you want about Mexico, but they helped us close the southern border. The facts speak for themselves.”
With Vancouver identified as a problem area by the FBI, British Columbia Conservative MP and public safety critic Elenore Sturko is calling on the NDP government led by Premier David Eby to implement the province’s fentanyl strategy, form a bipartisan provincial drug trafficking task force and launch two public inquiries.
“The FBI has warned Canada that they should prepare for the possibility that U.S. enforcement actions along their southern border with Mexico will lead to an increase in the production of fentanyl and other deadly drugs,” he said in a video posted on social media on May 18. “This should come as no surprise to Canada, as we know that between 2023 and 2024, there was an increase in the number of gangs, cartels and terrorist organizations operating here in Canada, primarily in Ontario and British Columbia.”
According to the report, 235 criminal organizations are involved in fentanyl-related activities, 35 of which are involved in the export of domestically produced drugs, such as fentanyl and methamphetamine.
Sturko said the British Columbia government should take immediate action to address the fentanyl problem.
“It has never been more important for us to take action against illegal drug production in British Columbia,” he said.
British Columbia’s Minister of Public Safety and Attorney General Garry Begg has said his government is expanding police resources and “intelligence-led” enforcement to combat drug trafficking.
“Just last October [2024], the RCMP federal narcotics unit dismantled the largest fentanyl and methamphetamine super lab in Canadian history, preventing more than 95 million lethal doses of this drug from flooding our streets. Action like this saves lives,” Begg told the BC legislature in February. “We will continue to support enforcement action against drug traffickers and malicious actors across British Columbia.”
Drug-related concerns
Patel and Sturko’s comments come just days after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) released its 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment, which links Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) — including international drug cartels and other violent criminal groups — to the supply of fentanyl in the United States.
The DEA says Mexican cartels are exploiting the relative ease of synthetic drug production compared to traditional herbal drug production to generate huge profits, sourcing the raw materials they need, primarily from China and India. They have a “sophisticated and robust” network – couriers, border tunnels and hideouts – to smuggle all major illegal drugs into the United States by air, sea and land, the DEA said.
The DEA report cited Canada as a destination for shipments of precursor chemicals and also as a source of “growing concern” due to “increased synthetic drug production” there, particularly from sophisticated fentanyl “super labs,” such as one seized by the RCMP in British Columbia in October 2024.
The production of fentanyl and its illegal cross-border transportation by Canadian criminal organizations have been a point of contention between the United States and Canada for several months.
Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on Canadian products not covered by the countries’ free trade agreement USMCA and a 10 percent tax on Canadian energy products, saying Canada must do more on border security to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs into the United States.
White House senior adviser Peter Navarro has said the tariffs were imposed because “the president is waging a war on drugs,” while rejecting accusations that his country is starting a trade war against Canada.
Canada has allocated $1.5 billion to strengthen border security since Trump first threatened tariffs, and at his request has also appointed a “fentanyl czar” to lead a joint Canadian-US strike force and designated fentanyl cartels as terrorist.
The Prime Minister’s Office reported in January that less than 0.2 percent of the fentanyl seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) originated in Canada.
According to the DEA’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment Report, as of spring 2025, 22.7 kilograms of Canadian-origin fentanyl were seized at the Canada-US border in 2024, compared to 9,354 kilograms seized at the US-Mexico border.
Starting chemicals
But Chinese analysts say the statistics on drug seizures at the northern border do not account for Beijing-linked fentanyl precursor operations based in Canada.
“It doesn’t have to be that the U.S. Border Patrol seized a large shipment of finished fentanyl,” Sam Cooper, an author and investigative journalist, told The Epoch Times in a previous interview. “What’s important is that the precursors are coming into Canada and being shipped elsewhere, and the money is being laundered from Canada.”
When these precursors are brought into the country, they end up primarily in super labs located in Canada, particularly in the western provinces. “Super labs” is the term used by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to describe clandestine synthetic drug production facilities. They are “large-scale, highly organized laboratories, generally associated with organized crime, where drugs are manufactured for wholesale distribution.”
Federal investigators in British Columbia announced they dismantled the “largest and most sophisticated” drug production lab in Canadian history last fall, dealing a “decisive blow” to a major international organized crime group operating in the province.
David Teboul, assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Pacific Region, said officers seized a combination of precursors and fentanyl products that could amount to 95.5 million doses of potentially lethal fentanyl.
In March, BC RCMP seized several million more doses of potentially lethal fentanyl after investigators dismantled three synthetic drug labs in the province. All three labs are linked to international organized crime groups based in British Columbia.
Police say it is not known where the drugs were sent, but a June 2024 Global Affairs Canada bulletin said that fentanyl originating from Canada has previously been seized in places such as the United States and Australia.
The report identified China as the largest source country for illicit fentanyl and precursor chemicals exported to Canada and North America since 2015.
