Vancouver’s most infamous heroin supplier, Naji Sharifi Zindashti, and his trial in Turkey involving Vancouver Corruption, heroin, and murders If you’re from Vancouver, you know the story of how, in 2016, two Vancouver local gang members, Harpreet Singh Majhu and Orosman Jr. Garcia-Arevalo, agreed to travel to Dubai and murder an international drug lord named “Cetin Koc” for money.  After the hit, they fled back to Vancouver, and a month later, they were found dead in Vancouver. They were allegedly killed by individuals who are in business with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Co ..read more

The true but untrue tale of spies, murder, economic warfare, and sanctions Introduction In 2004, a most unusual story appeared in a spy book written by a person named Thomas Reed (“Reed”), who worked at the US National Security Council. The unusual story was that the CIA blew up a Russian natural gas pipeline in the summer of 1982, with the help of Canada, causing a 3-kiloton blast somewhere in Siberia. According to Reed, the CIA signed-off on his book, and approved the revelation of this secret pipeline sabotage operation, including that Canada was in on it. The pipeline in question is the fa ..read more

I’ve written before on the story of how a Vancouver public company’s main source of revenues was supplying the precursor drug which allowed Mexican drug cartels to cook crystal meth in underground factories in California, which started the crystal meth epidemic across the United States, and caused countless untimely deaths.  As of 2021, 52,400 Americans had died from meth-related deaths.  Our Vancouver anti-hero, Dr. Death, the person who opened the door for crystal meth mass production for cartels, and its resultant mass deaths, sleeps like a baby in one of several mansion ..read more

A scuba diving fairy tale On March 8, 2023, several news organizations, including the New York Times, published a story emanating from an investigation they say they undertook in which they allege that the Nord Stream pipeline was blown up by six random Ukrainians working from a little sail boat. The story was populated in other newspapers, including The Guardian here. The story is ludicrous.  The theory of the story goes something like this:  Once upon a time on the German island of Rugen, five men and a woman, dressed in sailor’s clothing, rented a little s ..read more

YBM was Canada’s Wirecard 30 years ago. It remains one of the most surreal criminal cases 30 years ago this month, in February 1993, Russian organized crime leaders set a plan in motion to infiltrate Western capital markets, steal investor funds and launder money. The Russian organized crime group was the Solntsevskaya, and they had billions to launder from weapons trafficking, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, prostitution, theft, and extortion. Key leaders of the Solntsevskaya who came together for the con were Semion Mogilevich, Viktor Averin, Arnosha Tamm, and Sergei Mikhailov ..read more

Canada is racing to become a mining superpower but will its investments be enough? Clean Tech Energy Transition Late in 2022, Canada announced a series of new strategies aimed at re-igniting the domestic mining industry for rare earth elements (REEs) and critical minerals needed for the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and the clean tech powering it. Batteries and magnets, including for electric vehicles (EVs), are key outputs of these minerals for clean tech. To get to net zero, renewable energy capacity must be tripled and to achieve that, manufacturers globally need 5 ..read more

Arshdeep Dalla  The Government of India has designated Arshdeep Singh Gill (Gill) on its list of designated terrorists under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.  Gill lives in Canada and is a/k/a Arsh Dala, a/k/a Arsh Dalla. Arsh Singh Dalla The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which published the designation on January 9, 2023 in the Gazette of India, states that Gill is associated with the Canadian extremist organization Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF).  The MHA states that Gill engages in terrorist financing [from Canada, presumably, where he i ..read more

How organized crime used to work in Russia This is not a story but a potpourri of interesting events involving bribery, extortion, attempted murder, banking, Russian organized crime, Oligarchs and Canada.  We start with Russian Oligarch Vladimir Ivanovich Yakunin (Владимир Иванович Якунин), a high level politically exposed person.  Yakunin was a former KGB agent and Soviet ballistic missile specialist, before becoming president and chairman of the state-owned Russian Railways from 2005 to 2015. He is currently sanctioned by the United States. Among the many mansions that Ya ..read more

The petrol mafia case was first police case of ‘Ndrangheta and Camorra convergence across Italy A Deal with the Mafia Anna Bettozzi with high boots, fur and a helicopter (Source: Instagram) Here’s a question – what do you do to revive a failed oil business you inherited if you have no business skills and no money? You might make friends with a Mafia associate on Facebook. And if you’re going to do this, you might as well go big and partner with the most feared and secretive Mafia organization in the world, the ‘Ndrangheta. If it goes bad, you might be dead; if it goes well, you might build a b ..read more

Climate change is key driver for military Arctic visibility Climate change and Arctic Last week, the US Department of Defense announced the establishment of new unit in the Pentagon, the “Arctic Strategy and Global Resilience Office,” situated in Alaska, to build preparedness to address climate change, and strategies to defend the Alaska Arctic-fronting coast.  After the Cold War, the US was occupied in other theatres; in particular, terrorism and the Middle East, and the Arctic region was not its military priority. It is now refocusing on its two peer competitors – China and Ru ..read more