RCMP Says Probe Into Two Alleged Chinese Police Stations in Quebec Underway

The Sino-Quebec Center in Brossard, Quebec, is seen on March 9, 2023. RCMP are reportedly investigating this location, along with the Chinese Family Service of Greater Montreal, which are allegedly clandestine overseas Chinese police service stations. Noé Chartier/The Epoch Times

Quebec RCMP is investigating two locations suspected to be secret Chinese police service stations, adding to several such police outposts previously identified in Ontario and British Columbia.

The RCMP has confirmed that the two locations under investigation are in Montreal and Brossard, a suburb just south of the city.

The probe was first reported by Le Journal du Montreal on March 8, citing the locations under investigation as the Chinese Family Service of Greater Montreal (SFCGM), in the city’s Chinatown neighbourhood, and the South Shore Sino-Québec Center (CSQRS), a community organization in Brossard.

In a statement emailed to The Epoch Times, the RCMP confirmed its Integrated National Security Enforcement Team has opened an investigation into two alleged Chinese police stations in Quebec. RCMP declined to comment further, saying the probe is ongoing.

“We are carrying out police actions aimed at detecting and disrupting these foreign state-backed criminal activities, which may threaten the safety of persons living in Canada,” said the March 9 statement.

The statement said the RCMP recognizes that “Canadians of Chinese origin have been victims of the possible activities conducted by these centres,” and that any activities in the form of “intimidation, harassment or harmful targeting of diaspora communities or individuals in Canada will not be tolerated.”

A spokesperson at the SFCGM, who would only provide her last name, Chen, told The Epoch Times that they couldn’t immediately provide a comment. The Epoch Times also reached out to the CSQRS for comment by phone, but the call went unanswered.

Both centres have been open for decades, and have provided multifaceted services to Chinese and Asian communities.

Chinese Police Outposts

The two alleged Chinese police stations in Quebec are the latest additions to the collection of covert Chinese police service centres identified since last September, following a report by a Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders. The organization initially found three such stations in the Greater Toronto Area, among over 50 police stations worldwide.

An updated report from the group last December further pushed that number to a total of 102 in dozens of countries, including one in Vancouver, B.C., and a fifth police station whose specific location wasn’t identified.

RCMP said last week that the four known Chinese police stations in Canada have ceased operations.

Safeguard Defenders identified these Chinese police service centres based on local and state media reports in China, among other open-source information.

An Epoch Times report in February also identified a suspected police outpost in Richmond, B.C., which was listed in a publication from a Chinese police bureau as an affiliated overseas police service centre.

Safeguard Defenders initiated its investigation after it saw the Chinese authorities touting the success of the overseas police service stations in supporting a Beijing campaign aimed at fighting telecommunications fraud committed by Chinese nationals living abroad. Chinese authorities touted that, with support from some of its overseas police service stations, an estimated 230,000 overseas Chinese nationals have been “persuaded to return” to China to face criminal charges between April 2021 and July 2022.

Safeguard Defenders noted that the Chinese police’s persuade to return campaign has targeted non-suspects and dissidents of the Chinese regime.

Tanya Du, Noé Chartier, and The Canadian Press contributed to this report.