A Canadian man accused of heading a multi-billion-dollar global drug syndicate has been sentenced to 16 years in prison in Australia after three years of secret, closed court hearings.

Tse Chi Lop, formerly of Toronto, was accused of being one of world’s biggest drug kingpins and called “Asia’s El Chapo” when a deluge of meth was flowing across the Asia-Pacific region.

A global manhunt for the Chinese-born Canadian citizen ended when he was arrested at an airport in Amsterdam in 2021 as he tried to fly back to Canada. His extradition to face trial in Australia required a guarantee that he not face more than 25 years in prison. He arrived in Australia in December 2022.

On Thursday in court in Melbourne, when the doors were finally opened to the public and media, it seems the Dutch government did not need to worry about harsh Australian sentencing.

The world learned that last month he had pleaded guilty to conspiring to traffic commercial quantities of border-controlled drugs.

Australian media reports say the 62-year-old showed little emotion in court where he sat with a Cantonese interpreter under police guard.

The judge, Peter Rozen, described his business as “pure evil.”

Tse became one of the world’s most-wanted organized crime figures before he was caught. His vast wealth and power kept his name out of the headlines for years, allowing him to live a jet-set life filled with private planes, high-rolling casinos, real estate and travel.

Authorities said Tse forged an alliance of five triad crime groups in Asia into an organization members called “The Company.” For police in many countries, the syndicate was called Sam Gor, Cantonese for “Brother Number Three,” one of Tse’s nicknames.

“It’s about time. But as the judge mentioned, he got off lightly, he’s lucky,” said Jeremy Douglas, deputy director of operations with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, known as UNODC. Douglas first

dubbed Tse “the Asian El Chapo,“ in reference to El Chapo Guzman, the notorious Mexican drug kingoin. 

“At 16 years, pardonable after ten years, minus time served and time in Amsterdam before his extradition, means he could be out in a few years and deported, on a plane back to Toronto,” said Douglas, himself a Canadian.

Tse immigrated to Canada with his fiancé in 1988, at the age of 25 and settled in Toronto. There he laid the foundation for his aspirations. They married in Canada a year later and had two children, a daughter and a son; his son had health issues since birth, he once told court in a plea for leniency. Both his parents and his in-laws followed him to Canada and they all lived together, according to court records.

Tse first hit police radar in Canada in the early 1990s when he was caught in an RCMP drug probe of Italian mafiosi living in the Toronto area who were dealing with Chinese-based crime groups.

Tse shuttled back and forth between Canada and Asia but in recent years primarily lived abroad.

Despite the vast empire alleged by officials around the world, the Melbourne trial focussed on the period 2012-2013 of plotting within Australia. Prosecutors had strong evidence of his involvement in a drug plot that led to a series of police raids and seizures.

At its peak, Australia Federal Police (AFP) said, the Sam Gor syndicate was the biggest trafficker of methamphetamine to Australia.

He will be eligible for parole after serving 10 years.

Krissy Barrett, commissioner of the AFP, said the sentencing ended one of the federal force’s most high-profile investigations, called Operation Volante.

“This result showcases what the AFP does best — identifying and targeting criminal syndicates that cause significant harm to our communities,’’ she said.

“Operation Volante is a culmination of 14 years of hard work and perseverance from our investigators and international network. This investigation highlights that the long arm of the AFP can reach criminals across the world.”

Douglas said the modest sentence from not prosecuting Tse on much larger allegations is “unfortunate, especially given I know what international partners and the AFP have on him. The estimates of the different Sam Gor shipments that were going out of the Golden Triangle towards Australia and around the region were in the tens of tons, not a tiny amount.”

Tse will be deported when released, likely back to Canada.

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An encrypted chat allegedly between Balkan drug traffickers shows them bragging about having exclusive rights to smuggle cocaine alongside bananas in shipping containers exported by the Ecuadorian president’s family firm.

A confidential Croatian prosecution document shows two people, using the encrypted messenger platform Sky ECC and identified only by anonymous PIN numbers, boasting in a February 2021 chat that “no one but them” was allowed to load cocaine in containers shipped by the Noboa Trading Co TCN S.A.

Noboa Trading is part of Noboa Corporation, a sprawling business empire that produces bananas under the Bonita brand and is run by the family of Ecuador President Daniel Noboa. Noboa Trading Co. did not respond to questions from reporters, and the office of President Noboa declined to comment.

In a months-long investigation, reporters from Serbian outlet KRIK, global investigative reporting group the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the

Investigative Journalism Bureau

were able to match specific drug shipments mentioned in chats between the alleged traffickers to real-life banana shipments made by Noboa Trading.

Crucially, reporters were also able to decipher just who, in the criminal underworld, was alleged to receive the shipments involved.

While the Croatian documents showed only anonymous PINs, a Serbian indictment exclusively obtained by KRIK let them identify one of the alleged interlocutors as Nikola Đorđević, who Serbian prosecutors say is an organized crime figure currently wanted in Serbia in an unrelated cocaine smuggling case. Đorđević remains at large and Serbian prosecutors ordered an international warrant for his arrest in May 2023.

Earlier this year Ecuador’s Ombudsman claimed that as much as 70 per cent of the drugs consumed in Europe are now exported from Ecuador, according to an interview with Deutsche Welle.

The new disclosure comes at an awkward time for President Noboa, who has pitched himself as an anti-drug crusader, and who has called on U.S. and European armies to join his “war” against what he called “narco-terrorists.”

“The revelations expose a massive conflict of interest for a president who has based his entire political career on a narrative of combating violence and curbing the corrosive influence of drug cartels,” said Jake Johnston, director of international research at the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

In March of this year, Colombian magazine Raya reported that police seized nearly 700 kilos of cocaine from three Noboa Trading banana containers at the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil between 2020 and 2022.

During a presidential debate earlier this year, opposition candidate Luisa González repeatedly questioned President Noboa, who was then seeking re-election, over Raya’s allegations.

“Investigate Noboa Trading, where drugs are exported in banana boxes from Mr. Daniel Noboa’s company to Croatia and Italy,” González said of the president’s family firm.

President Noboa rebuffed the accusations, saying the company had cooperated in each case and Noboa Trading officials had been exonerated “from any illicit activity.”

He also denied having any personal involvement with the company.

“I am not the owner, but members of my family are in that company,” he said.

Bananas and cocaine

Although the allegations and chat logs are unclear exactly how Nikola Đorđević and his associates would have accessed the containers of a major fruit exporter like Noboa Trading, there is evidence that the claim made on the encrypted chat wasn’t just an empty boast.

The chats, which prosecutors say involve the alleged traffickers, refer to three specific shipments of cocaine that were expected by date, ship name and container number. Reporters matched the details shared in the discussions to real Noboa Trading banana shipments using shipping records and export data.

For example, they mentioned a massive 430-kilogram load of cocaine hidden in container MEDU9747725, which they said left Ecuador on January 25. By consulting shipping logs and export data, reporters confirmed that Noboa Trading had indeed shipped that exact container, on that exact date.

All three of the banana shipments, which were examined in detail by reporters from KRIK, OCCRP and the IJB, were sent from Guayaquil, Ecuador aboard the Liberian-flagged container ship MSC Mirella in late 2020 and early 2021, before being transferred to other ships.

In total, police say they contained 535 kilos of cocaine with a street value of at least 26 million euros. The last of the shipments, allegedly containing 60 kilos of cocaine, was seized by Croatian authorities in early March, after being offloaded in Ploče, a port on the Adriatic Sea, according to the Croatian prosecution document.

While Đorđević’s group allegedly dealt with loading the cocaine at the source, Croatian prosecution files say that a different Balkan drug gang took responsibility for offloading the drugs from the Noboa Trading containers once they arrived in Croatia.

That group was allegedly led by Petar Ćosić, who is currently on trial in Croatia for organizing and leading a criminal organization, aggravated murder, and smuggling hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Ecuador, including some inside Noboa banana containers. (Ćosić did not respond to a request for comment sent to his lawyer.)

Shipping records show Firma Leon Van Parys N.V., a fruit company registered in Antwerp, which is the largest banana purchaser for the Croatian market, was a consignee in one shipment and the notified party in the other two. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Shipping firm MSC said it remains firmly opposed to the cocaine trade and continues to intensify its security efforts.

“In recent years, the liner shipping industry has dramatically improved its ability to detect shipments of illegal drugs like those referenced in the report thanks to advances in technology and effective partnerships with customs authorities,” MSC said in an emailed response to questions. “The picture today is very different.”

Tainted supply chains

The new allegations could provide rare and intimate details of the growing collaboration between criminal groups trafficking cocaine to Europe, and demonstrates how easily supply chains for everyday goods can be compromised.

The cooperation appears to be part of a wider trend towards modular criminal supply chains, according to Anna Sergi, an organized crime expert and professor of sociology at the University of Bologna.

In this case, one set of alleged Balkan smugglers arranged loading the drugs into containers in Ecuador, while another was responsible for offloading them in Croatia, according to the allegations in various legal documents.

“Groups specialize in origin stuffing, maritime logistics, and local distribution and then sell or barter those capabilities,” Sergi told OCCRP.

And the alleged criminal hierarchy of the group that police say took responsibility for the cocaine in Croatia may not end with Ćosić.

By cross-referencing Croatian court papers with additional documents from a case in Serbia, OCCRP reporters found indications in court documents and chat logs that Ćosić was taking orders via Sky ECC from a much bigger criminal figure: convicted Montenegrin drug lord Darko Šarić.

Šarić, already a convicted cocaine smuggler, is currently on trial in Serbia for money laundering and jointly organizing four assassinations, among other allegations.

Serbian prosecutors have accused Šarić of continuing to manage a criminal organization from behind bars using Sky ECC.

Šarić denies these allegations. His lawyer, Dalibor Katančević said that Šarić’s cell has been searched countless times and no evidence had been found of prohibited means of communication.

“I am certain that in all of the prosecution and court files you referred to, you could not have found any undisputed evidence that Darko Šarić is connected to any of the individuals mentioned, nor to any of the alleged shipments,” Katančević said.

While there is no evidence that Noboa Trading was aware of contraband allegedly hidden in its banana containers, Sergi said the findings suggest systemic vulnerabilities at Ecuador’s main port: weak controls, opaque contracting of third-party packers, and informal gate practices that create opportunities for capture by criminals.

“[The decrypted chat] does not by itself prove company management’s involvement,” she said. “But it does strongly indicate that someone with control over the physical container-stuffing and departure process is complicit or has been captured by criminals.”

President Noboa and the Noboa Trading Co.

During the presidential debate earlier this year, President Noboa said he was not personally involved with the banana company sharing his name, but company records and the presidency’s own website show historical ties with him, and ongoing links to his family.

President Noboa’s father Alvaro Noboa, who unsuccessfully ran for the Ecuadorian presidency five times, leads both Noboa Corporation and Noboa Group, the umbrella companies for a vast business conglomerate that includes Noboa Trading, according to the websites of both Alvaro Noboa and the company.

Before becoming president, Daniel Noboa worked at Noboa Corporation, becoming the youngest shipping director in the company’s history, according to the website of the presidency.

Roberto Jorge Ponce Noboa, cousin of Alvaro Noboa, was CEO of Noboa Trading at the time the three shipments identified by OCCRP and KRIK arrived in Croatia, according to company documents and local media.

Noboa Trading is owned by two other companies: majority shareholder Lanfranco Holding S.A., registered in Panama, and Ecuadorian firm Inmobilaria Zeus S.A.

Because Panama allows companies to keep their shareholders anonymous, it is not possible to determine who currently owns Lanfranco Holding, but a 2015 document in the Pandora Papers leak shows that in 2015, Alvaro Noboa transferred ownership of the firm to two of his sons, Daniel and Juan Sebastian.

As of 2021, Inmobiliaria Zeus was owned by other companies registered in the Bahamas and Panama.

While its majority owner is hidden, among Inmobiliaria Zeus’s shareholders in 2021 were four companies and 12 individuals, including President Noboa’s aunt, Isabel Noboa Pontón, and several cousins.

Both Lanfranco Holding and Inmobiliaria Zeus also own other firms linked to the Noboa family. Inmobiliaria Zeus , for example, is a shareholder of Noboapallets S.A., while Lanfranco Holding is a shareholder of 45 other agricultural, shipping, packing and fertilizer companies connected to the Noboa family.

Though a Noboa Trading contractor responsible for conducting anti-narcotics inspections has been subject to judicial proceedings at least four times, the person has never been prosecuted.

“If the company cooperates, and alerts the National Police if it has some kind of contamination, that means it is cooperating,” President Noboa previously said.

As the world’s largest banana exporter, shipments of the yellow fruit through Ecuador’s busy ports like Guayaquil are an attractive target for cocaine traffickers.

Though Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain, remain the major entry points for cocaine into Europe, improved interdiction has prompted traffickers to increasingly use secondary smaller ports.

Just as Balkan gangs have gained a growing foothold in the trade, so has Croatia, with its six commercial ports, become a more popular destination.

As Ecuador’s fourth-largest exporter of bananas, chat logs indicate Noboa Trading has found its containers at the centre of this phenomenon.

Between 2014 and 2024, the firm and its associated brand name exported $190 million of the fruit to Croatia, one of its key markets.

“The more you send to that region, the greater likelihood that the containers are going to be contaminated,” said Bruce Goldberg, a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who worked in Ecuador for half a dozen years.

“And Ecuador sends bananas everywhere. Like everywhere.”

The Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health is a collaborative investigative newsroom supported by Postmedia that partners with academics, researchers and journalists while training the next generation of investigative reporters. Additional reporting contributed by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

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OTTAWA — The thorny question of whether federally-appointed judges should get a $28,000 to $38,000 raise from Ottawa will now be decided by the Federal Court.

Wednesday, the Canadian Superior Courts Judges Association (CSCJA) filed the

first-ever lawsuit asking the Federal Court

to order Minister of Justice Sean Fraser to reconsider his decision to deny the judiciary the raise to their $414,900 annual salary.

In the lawsuit, the association representing 1,400 sitting and retired judges said Fraser did not properly explain why he disregarded a recommendation by the Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission for the raise.

“None of the three reasons given by the Government are legitimate reasons based on a reasonable factual foundation,” reads the CSCJA’s lawsuit.

This is the first time an association representing the judiciary takes the government to court over judges’ pay since the first quadrennial commission was established in 1999.

The commission was established following a 1997 Supreme Court decision that required a review of judicial compensation by an independent commission. The panel would hear arguments from government and judges and then issue non-binding recommendations that the government must respond to.

In July, the commission recommended

the government increase the “inadequate” salaries by $28,000 for most federally-appointed judges to $36,000 for the chief justice of the Supreme Court. It argued the raise was necessary to keep the bench attractive to “outstanding candidates.”

But in his response to the commission on the eve of budget 2025, Fraser said

the government disagreed with the finding

.

“Current compensation for judges already includes annual indexation and strong pensions,” said his spokesperson Jeremy Bellefeuille, pooh-poohing the conclusion that there was a lack of top candidates to fill judicial vacancies.

The federal government also argued that it would be uncouth to offer judges a raise as Canadians face increasing economic uncertainty and the government is preparing to cut public sector spending and the size of the bureaucracy.

In its lawsuit, the CSCJA said that the response missed the point when responding to the commission’s reasoning leading to the recommended raise.

The association said that instead of arguing with the substance of the commission’s report as well as new data illustrating the gap between judges’ and lawyers’ salary, Fraser simply reiterated the government’s arguments that failed to convince the independent panel in the first place.

“Allowing such a response to stand would render the Commission process meaningless and erode public confidence in the independence of Canada’s courts. A strong, expert, and independent judiciary is essential to the fair and timely delivery of justice,” CSCJA lawyer Jean-Michel Boudreau of IMK LLP

said in a statement

.

Neither Fraser’s office nor the Department of Justice immediately responded to a request for comment.

The quadrennial commissions’ recommendations this summer fell squarely in the middle of the judiciary and the federal government’s positions.

Judges’ associations argued magistrates needed a $60,000 raise retroactive to April 2024 to maintain the appeal of a job that is increasingly struggling to attract “outstanding candidates.” Otherwise, the bench risked another vacancy crisis because the position was unappealing to private sector lawyers, they added.

The federal government countered that judges’ salary and benefits — including “one of the best retirement plans in Canada” — as well as generous indexing did not require a $60,000 “bonus” to keep the job attractive.

The government also said in its arguments to the commission and in its reasons for denying the raise that it couldn’t justify paying judges more as it prepared to cut the public service by 40,000 heads.

But, the CSCJA argues, the government did not impose salary freezes on public servants.

“It was at the very least incumbent on the Government to explain its differential treatment of the judiciary, who are not a class of civil servant,” reads the lawsuit.

“No explanation is provided beyond the Government’s bald statement that judicial salaries are ‘adequate’, reflecting the Government’s unabashed and improper substitution of its own view for that of the independent Commission.”

Ultimately, the CSCJA says that allowing Fraser’s “inadequate” response undermines the quadrennial commission’s work and treats it like a mere formality before the government renders whatever decision it wants to make on judicial compensation.

“The Supreme Court of Canada made clear that while the Government is not required to accept Commission recommendations, if it chooses to depart from them, it has a duty to provide legitimate reasons,” Boudreau said in the CSCJA statement.

“Meaningful engagement with the Commission’s work is not optional, it is a constitutional obligation.”

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

• Federal government rejects $28,000 raise proposal for judges
• Report finds judges’ $414,900 salary ‘inadequate’ to attract top talent, recommends $28,000 raise

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OTTAWA — A group of advocates representing voices across civil society and faith communities came together on Wednesday to decry what they called the “ever-expanding” scope of the Liberals’ legislation aimed at tackling hate.

It comes as MPs on the parliamentary justice committee begin their clause-by-clause review of the legislation, known as Bill C-9, with voting set to get underway on a series of amendments, including one proposed by the Bloc Québécois to see the Criminal Code scrubbed of an existing religious defence for certain hate speech laws.

That change was not outlined in the original text of the bill, which Justice Minister Sean Fraser presented back in September.

Removing that defence from Canada’s hate speech laws has been a longstanding request of the Bloc Québécois, who, as

National Post reported

this week, struck a deal with the Liberals to see it happen, in exchange for helping the government pass its bill.

Khaled Al-Qazzaz, executive director of the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council, on Wednesday voiced concerns that the bill, which was targeted at spaces around places of worship, now appears to be “ever-expanding in ways that is unprecedented.”

His organization, along with the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Council of Imams and the Christian Legal Fellowship, have all stated they oppose the removal of the religious defence under section 319 of the Criminal Code, which criminalizes wilfully promoting hate and antisemitism. Canadian law defines the latter as “condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust.”

As it is written, the defence states that a person who in “good faith” expressed or tried to communicate an opinion “on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text” should not be convicted under these hate speech laws.

Critics have suggested that removing the provision leaves a vague law that could be applied to legitimate debate and Al-Qazzaz said his faith community views its removal as potentially limiting how religious texts could be promoted within religious schools and broader society.

Tuesday’s meeting of the justice committee was adjourned at the request of the Liberals, with agreement from the Bloc Québécois, before the amendment to remove this defence was officially presented. Amendments are considered confidential before being discussed at committee.

Opposition Conservatives, who have vowed to fight against the proposed exclusion of the measure and decry it as an attack on “religious freedom,” left the committee, expressing confusion, saying that they were prepared to sit for hours longer to review future amendments.

A government source, not authorized to speak publicly, told National Post the adjournment happened because they felt opposition committee members were working in “good faith,” so they ended the meeting around its regularly scheduled time. The next meeting is set for Thursday.

“We remain open to amendments that strengthen protections for communities across Canada in the face of rising hate,” wrote Lola Dandybaeva, a spokeswoman for Fraser.

One of the agreements parties reached during Tuesday’s committee meeting was to maintain the requirement that laying a hate propaganda charge would need the consent of a provincial attorney general.

The bill had proposed removing it as a way to streamline the laying of such charges. However, civil liberties advocates and Conservatives opposed doing it, describing it as a necessary protection for freedom of speech.

The advocates on Wednesday raised concern about other amendments proposed separately by Conservative MP Roman Baber and Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, who both brought forward suggestions about adding to the bill an offence against the “wilful promotion of terrorism.”

Canada does not currently have laws against the “promotion” or “glorification” of terrorism.

Tim McSorley, national coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, said on Wednesday that the consideration for adding such an offence raises concerns because promotion, as a concept, was “incredibly vague” and could apply to “legitimate discussion.”

“It’s incredibly broad and could lead to significant criminalization of discussion of current affairs, of legitimate political discussions and debates,” McSorley told the news conference.

“We think that it has no place in Canadian legislation overall, and certainly no place in being brought in as part of an ostensibly combating hate legislation.”

McSorley compared the effort to laws ushered in under former prime minister Stephen Harper through an anti-terror bill back in 2015, which was criticized for overreaching police and security powers.

Baber referenced those Harper efforts during his testimony before Tuesday’s committee, saying that “a gap” currently exists, which he says has allowed for the “promotion of terror.”

The MP, who has been vocal in his opposition to anti-Israel protests staged around his Toronto riding, had presented a private member’s bill on the matter to the House of Commons last month, which sought to criminalize the promotion of a terrorist group or “terrorist activity.”

He specifically named the action of calling for an “intifada in Canada” or activities that promote a listed terrorist entity, such as Hamas, the governing group in Gaza responsible for carrying out the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.

Officials who testified before Tuesday’s committee said the courts have interpreted “promotion” to mean “active support or instigation” and more than “simple encouragement or advancement.”

The civil society advocates who spoke on Wednesday represented a group of about 20 different organizations and groups that oppose the government bill in its entirety.

They warned that the legislation’s proposals to create new intimidation and obstruction offences targeted at the activities around places of worship and other buildings where an identifiable group gathers could lead to a quashing of legitimate protests.

Jewish advocacy groups, such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, have said measures were needed to better protect members of the Jewish community who have been dealing with impeded access to spaces and a police-reported rise in antisemitism over the Israel-Hamas war.

Civil liberties advocates have also raised concerns about the bill’s proposal to make it an offence to promote hate by displaying a hate symbol like a swastika, or an image related to a listed terrorist entity, warning that police could misinterpret certain Arabic phrases.

Liberal MP Salma Zahid said on Wednesday that she’s “heard some concerns” about the bill.

“I think all conversations around censorship are fraught,” said Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith.

“We have to be very careful when it comes to adding additional rules that restrict speech. And so I will look at it very carefully.”

National Post

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As Canadians gear up for the holiday season, many will be taking trips to the United States. Canadian travellers are at the discretion of American border officers, who may ask questions about relationship status, work history and living situation.

It could raise a red flag if a Canadian is going to the U.S. and has an American spouse, immigration lawyer Ksenia Tchern McCallum at Tchern McCallum Immigration Law told National Post over email. That’s because some people may visit and then remain in the U.S. to apply for a visa within the country.

Amid

ongoing tensions between Canada and the U.S.

and recent changes to

American travel policies

, it’s important for Canadians to be informed ahead of reaching border. Travelling to the U.S. for Canadians is “not business as usual.”

“The U.S. now has enhanced security which includes obtaining fingerprints and photographs of visitors. Canadians who stay 30 days or longer must register with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services after they enter the country. And, those who don’t comply face fines up to $5,000 or jail time,” she said.

To avoid the red flag being raised about a cross-border relationship, Canadians going to the U.S. should be prepared to explain to officers how they maintain the relationship and “what concrete ties they have to Canada that demonstrate they will return after their visit,” said Tchern McCallum.

“This can include a full-time job, family obligations, a lease or mortgage, pets, or any other commitments that anchor them to Canada,” she said.

If a relationship is new, there might not be an established back and forth history of travel between the countries, she said. Officers may ask more detailed questions. They could inquire about the purpose of the visit, length of stay, living arrangements, and who is covering expenses.

“Having an itinerary and answers prepared can significantly ease the process,” Tchern McCallum advised.

“If there is a future intention for the American spouse to sponsor the Canadian spouse (or vice versa), the Canadian can be upfront about this. Explaining that you understand the proper immigration process, that you are not trying to immigrate without authorization, and that any future move will be done through a formal application often reassures officers.”

She added: “It shows transparency, awareness of the rules, and respect for U.S. immigration requirements.”

More advice for Canadians going to the U.S. includes making sure to have “supporting evidence of your ties to Canada” if travel plans are for a prolonged period of time.

“This could include an employment confirmation letter, pay stubs, bank statements, lease or mortgage statements, utility bills, etc.,” she said. “Proof of insurance and financial ability to support yourself while in the U.S. is also important, especially for Canadians staying over 30 days.”

Tchern McCallum also said that Canadian travellers, in particular snowbirds, who want to avoid being turned away at the border should have a return flight booked. “If not, you’ll be flagged,” she said  in a news release by iAmbic Communications.

“Have you overstayed the pre-determined time of your visit in the past? If so, you could be questioned or refused entry,” she said.

Canadian travellers who visit the U.S. frequently should also be prepared to be questioned about it and provide detailed answers. She said it’s best not to be evasive, as that could also lead to denied entry.

• Canadian border agency wants international flyers with stopovers in Canada to skip customs
• Service Canada offers limited apology, ‘no accountability’ for telling Jewish Montrealer she couldn’t name Israel as birth country

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Ultimately, officials at the passport office relented when she pushed back.

And in a
Nov. 29 Instagram post
, she said she received her passport with Israel identified as her birth country.

Meanwhile, Oberman wrote a letter to the Montreal passport office and Service Canada on Nov. 12, (

posted to his Instagram

), seeking an explanation for what happened. The response received last week from 

Cliff Groen

, the chief operating officer for Service Canada was not forthcoming, says Oberman.

“While we appreciate the quick response,” Oberman told National Post in an interview on Wednesday, “it was an apology but not an apology. It did not offer an explanation.”

He suspects the quick reply was driven by the intense media attention Zorchinsky’s case has received, including the National Post and 

The New York Times

. (He is not publicly sharing Groen’s letter, he says, out of deference to the government.)

During the same interview with the Post, Zorchinsky emphasized her concern that “this doesn’t happen to anyone else. It’s abnormal. It’s not okay.”

Moreover, she says, Groen’s response was “totally insufficient. This is why Neil and I decided to write a second letter.”

In the follow-up letter to Groen, dated Nov. 27 (

posted on Oberman’s LinkedIn

account), Oberman notes that Groen stated passport staff “may have caused some confusion” and Service Canada must “regularly review” it’s operational tools.

Yet, he adds, Groen did not state why passport office staff “invented rationales having no basis in policy.”

And Oberman insists that issuing the new passport with the correct information does not excuse or explain staff conduct.

He renewed his demands for the policy/operational documents supporting the statements passport office staff made to Zorchinsky. Further, he stated that if such documents can’t be provided, then an explanation as to why needs to be forthcoming.

He also requested confirmation of an internal review of the incident.

Finally, he intends to file complaints before the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the federal ombudperson if a substantive response is not provided by mid-December. He also threatened to file an application for judicial review before the Federal Court.

What happened to his client was not “merely a clerical mistake,” insists Oberman in

a post on Instagram

, adding, “It was the application of non-existent rules, delivered with confidence.”

Both Zorchinksy and Oberman point to the federal government’s decision to recognize Palestine as a state, without consultation with Canadians, as the potential source for such incidents. The move has given license to people with anti-Israel political views and Jewish people “have been suffering” as a result, says Oberman.

He adds that “this is not a Jewish issue. All Canadians have the right to government service” without the influence of geopolitics. 

He says Zorchinsky’s story has prompted other Canadians to share their experiences. They are “collecting and examining” them and considering whether further legal intervention may be sought in the future.

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Newly released pictures and video from Jeffrey Epstein’s two private islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands show what looks to be a dentist’s office, several bedrooms and bathrooms, and a partially redacted view of a phone and a blackboard.

The images from Little Saint James and Great Saint James islands came from the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Justice,

according to a statement

from the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, which released them on social media on Wednesday.

Last month the committee sent a request to the U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General for documents, communications and other information pertaining to investigations or potential criminal investigations of Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, his former associate. “These new images are a disturbing look into the world of Jeffrey Epstein and his island,” said Robert Garcia, a Representative from California and the committee’s ranking member.

“We are releasing these photos and videos to ensure public transparency in our investigation and to help piece together the full picture of Epstein’s horrific crimes. We won’t stop fighting until we deliver justice for the survivors,” he said in a statement, adding: “It’s time for President Trump to release all the files, now.”

The committee said it has also received records from J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank pertaining to accounts previously held by Epstein. Oversight Democrats intend to release those  files to the public after review in the days ahead.

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation to compel the Department of Justice to release files on Epstein. This was after spending months trying to block their release in a fight that inflamed tensions in his party and threatened to undermine his agenda, by detracting from other issues he wanted the public and the media to focus on.

Epstein, a convicted sex offender, was facing federal charges of trafficking underage girls when he died in jail in 2019.

Maxwell, who had a romantic relationship with Epstein in the 1990s and remained closely associated with him until his death, was sentenced to 20 years on child sex trafficking and other offences in 2022. She was moved to a minimum-security federal prison in Bryan, Texas, in August from a prison in Florida.

🚨 BREAKING: Oversight Dems have received never-before-seen photos and videos of Jeffrey Epstein’s private island that are a harrowing look behind Epstein’s closed doors.

See for yourself. We won’t stop fighting until we end this cover-up and deliver justice for the survivors. pic.twitter.com/qXmxFISZLS

— Oversight Dems (@OversightDems) December 3, 2025

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