A former resident of B.C.’s Lower Mainland allegedly fled Canada after posting a $10,000 release bond following his arrest by immigration officials investigating a scam that saw victims send more than $1 million to fraudsters posing as Canada Revenue Agency employees.
Even though he is still believed to be in China, Haoran Charlie Xue, 27, was charged with nine criminal offences last month in connection with a multi-jurisdictional investigation into an organized crime group that began in 2019.
The details of Xue’s disappearance are contained in court documents filed in recent months as part of a parallel, ongoing civil battle over the proceeds of the sale of Xue’s former Burnaby, B.C., home, last assessed at $1.9 million.
B.C.’s director of civil forfeiture wants to keep the money as the proceeds of crime, claiming Xue is the real owner, despite the fact the home was registered to his father.
The RCMP’s Federal and Serious Organized Crime unit announced the charges against Xue last month.
He is accused of defrauding seven victims out of nearly $200,000, although RCMP claim the total number of Canadians taken in the group’s scam was closer to 70 and the amount they lost nearer to $1 million.
According to a copy of the charges obtained by CBC, Xue is also charged with using the stolen identities of five other people in order to commit fraud on behalf of himself and his associates.
And he allegedly posed as a man named David Franklin in order to rent a Richmond UPS box where victims were allegedly told to send their cash, police say.
‘You are just looking to talk to somebody’
One of the alleged victims named in the charges spoke with the CBC.
The Calgary woman — whom the CBC has agreed not to identify — said a man who called himself “Mark” called her in May 2019, claiming to be an officer with RBC in Toronto.
One of the alleged victims of Haoran Xue claims she was vulnerable when a stranger called her and persuaded her she was in trouble with her bank. (graphbottles/Shutterstock)
The 67-year-old said she lives alone.
“Sometimes, I think when you’re very vulnerable, you are just looking to talk to somebody, And when somebody calls, you pick up the phone to answer it, not knowing that you will face a problem with that person,” she said.
“And they are very smart at convincing you, that’s another thing. And there are people like me who get convinced. That’s my downside.”
“Mark” told her to send $15,000, she said. He appeared to know her address, directing her to a nearby UPS location.
The woman said she is now amazed a bank teller let her take out the money.
She also doesn’t understand why it took RCMP so long to complete an investigation into an accused who is now far beyond the reach of Canadian authorities.
No show for September 2019 hearing
According to the civil suit, RCMP began investigating Xue in June 2019 as part of a probe into organized crime groups posing as a software company, a bank and Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) employees. It says victims were told to send cash and gift cards to mailboxes in B.C. and Ontario.
Court documents claim Xue transferred $1 million in and out of his bank accounts.
A CBC journalist visits Haoran Xue’s house in 2019 when he was first named in a civil suit related to a CRA scam. No one was home and a heap of mail was piled on the doorstep. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)
Investigators tailed him for several weeks and ultimately seized a cellphone that they said contained the names of victims and the addresses to which they were told to send specified amounts of money.
The RCMP arrested and released Xue in 2019. As a result of the fraud investigation, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) also began an immigration investigation.
According to court documents, the CBSA arrested Xue and then released him on a $10,000 bond pending a hearing set for September 2019.
The documents say he fled Canada around Aug. 15, 2019, about the same time his father listed the Burnaby house for sale.
‘A respected contributing member of his community’
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has issued a default order against Xue, who hasn’t filed any response to the director of civil forfeiture’s claims.
But Xue’s father — Zenggang Xue — has retained a B.C. lawyer and filed a response to both the initial claim and a recent application in pursuit of documents from banks, a real estate company and the CBSA.
B.C.’s director of civil forfeiture wants to seize this home, which belongs to Haoran Xue, a man charged as part of an RCMP probe into phone scams. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)
Zenggang Xue said he owns a successful propane exchange business in a city 1,000 kilometres west of Beijing and that he paid for his son to come to Canada in 2012 to obtain an education at a private college.
The father said he visited Canada several times and was impressed with “the local quality of life.” He said he decided to use his savings “to accommodate his son while he attended school, generating rental income if possible to offset the mortgage, to possibly retire at this property or simply sell it on the market for profit.”
According to his court filings, Zenggang Xue was spending his summer in B.C., in 2019 when RCMP raided his home while investigating his son. He said he was unaware of the allegations before that.
“Zenggang is a respected contributing member of his community in the City of Yongji, who never engaged in, or condoned anything, that is contrary to law,” Zenggang Xue said, in his response to the civil claim.
“Zenggang and his family earned their living honestly by hard work and by their habit of savings which is the only source of funds in purchasing the house.”
The father noted there is no allegation of wrongdoing on his part and called the application for documents related to the financing of the home “a fishing expedition.”
In May, a judge sided with B.C.’s director of civil forfeiture in ordering the release of the documents in question.
The proceeds of the home will be held by the court until a trial on the merits of the civil claim is complete.
None of the criminal allegations have been proven in court.
Watch: CBC Marketplace investigates the CRA phone scam:
Who’s behind one of the biggest cyber-crime schemes in Canadian history? David Common travels to India to catch the fraudsters. 22:31
Toronto police are urging the suspect in the murders of two women who were found dead in a home last week to surrender.
Police say they are still searching for Joseph Ayala, 33, who is wanted for second-degree murder.
Police say they received a call on Friday for a well-being check at a house in Etobicoke and found the women.
They say the suspect and the women were related.
Ayala is described as five-foot-11, with a shaved head, and police say he is known to wear a cowboy hat, black cowboy boots and a jacket with tassels on the sleeve.
Police say anyone who sees him should call 911 and not approach him, as he is considered dangerous.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 26, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up in late-morning trading due in part to strength in energy stocks as the price of oil moved higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 39.10 points at 23,325.18.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 37.86 points at 41,212.94. The S&P 500 index was down 13.77 points at 5,620.84, while the Nasdaq composite was down 127.75 points at 17,750.04.
The Canadian dollar traded for 74.17 cents US compared with 73.92 cents US on Friday.
The October crude oil contract was up US$2.33 at US$77.16 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down six cents at US$2.12 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$2.40 at US$2,548.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up two cents at US$4.26 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 26, 2024.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is urging businesses to hire Canadian workers as his government announces new restrictions to limit low-wage temporary foreign workers.
The Liberal government, which has been criticized for the recent influx of temporary foreign workers, is bringing back pre-pandemic rules that made it more difficult for businesses to hire low-wage workers from abroad.
Speaking to reporters at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Halifax, Trudeau said his government loosened the rules to help businesses facing labour shortages recover from the pandemic.
But the economic situation is different now, he said, and Canada “no longer needs as many temporary foreign workers.”
“We need Canadian businesses to invest in training and technology and not increasing their reliance on low-cost foreign labour,” Trudeau said.
“It’s not fair to Canadians struggling to find a good job, and it’s not fair to those temporary foreign workers, some of whom are being mistreated and exploited.”
Effective Sept. 26, the government will refuse applications for low-wage temporary foreign workers in regions with an unemployment rate of six per cent or higher.
Employers will be allowed to hire a maximum of 10 per cent of their workforce from the temporary foreign worker program, down from 20 per cent.
Workers hired through the low-wage stream will be able to work a maximum of one year, down from two years.
There will be some exceptions to the rules for specific sectors, such as health care and construction.
“To those who would complain about worker shortages, here’s my message: there is no better time to hire and invest in Canadian workers,” Trudeau said.
When the federal government eased restrictions for the temporary foreign worker program in 2022, Canada had about one million job vacancies across the country and the unemployment rate dipped to a record-low of 4.9 per cent.
However, job vacancies have decreased significantly since then and the unemployment rate is climbing as high interest rates restrict economic growth.
In July, the unemployment rate was 6.4 per cent.
Economists have criticized the the federal government for maintaining the relaxed rules, arguing that they discourage businesses from investing in innovation and suppress workers’ wages.
While the Liberal government has defended its decision to loosen the rules, it is now acknowledging that it’s time to tighten them again.
According to public data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 183,820 temporary foreign worker permits became effective in 2023. That was up from 98,025 in 2019 — an 88 per cent increase.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 26, 2024.
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