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http://www.theprovince.com/news/vancouver/7912550.bin?size=620x400s A drawing of Shui Fong Lai, aka Tong Sang Lai, the alleged ' Dragon Head ' of the Macau Wo On Lok triad. Drawing by Linda Mullin. Photograph by: HANDOUT , PROVINCE Province deputy editor Fabian Dawson recaps how an Asian crime godfather landed in Vancouver and details his connections, as Immigration Canada moves to deport the gangster and his family after 17 years. Immigration Canada’s attempt to remove a Macau crime godfather, who has been living in Richmond for the past 17 years with his family, will once again shed a spotlight on a dark period for the government agency when corruption and incompetence allowed many Asian criminals to enter Canada. Their organizations, which have taken root in B.C. and elsewhere in Canada, have been linked to local murders, underground banks in Hong Kong, triad wars in the gambling Mecca of Macau, extortion of schoolchildren in Vancouver, illegal weapons trade, credit-card fraud and even arms shipments. Immigration Canada has confirmed that Tong Sang Lai, a.k.a. Lai Tong San, his wife Sap Mui Vong, whose last known address was on Bowcock Drive in Richmond, and their three children are scheduled for an admissibility hearing over three days, beginning Feb. 26, in Vancouver. Government lawyers will argue the known gangster and his family lied about their criminal connections in order to gain entry into Canada — a fact well documented by The Province since their arrival on Oct. 20, 1996. Immigration Canada won’t say why the case has taken so long or what, if any, new evidence has been brought forward to determine now that Tong and his family cannot stay in Canada. But sources said that in addition to a reprise of his escape to Canada, the hearing will likely be told of their family life in B.C. that will range from suspected visits back to Macau to link up with junket operations run by known criminals and acts of local philanthropy, including donations to the B.C. Children’s Hospital. The Province exposed Tong’s presence in Vancouver in July 1997, reporting that an international investigation had been launched to determine how a notorious Asian gangster ended up living in Vancouver as a landed immigrant. At that time, the gangster who also went by the name Shui Fong Lai, alias Dragon Head Lai, had escaped a crackdown on warring triads in Macao and had moved into a $750,000 east Vancouver home on Fraserview Drive with his wife and children. Our investigation showed that Tong, who was 42 at that time, slipped into Vancouver via Los Angeles using an elaborate plan that was devised as early as 1994. He was then the leader of the 3,000-strong Wo On Lok, also known as the Shui Fong (Water Rats) triad, which had been linked to the operations of Macau gambling czar Stanley Ho. Ho has been feted and wooed and given medals by the likes of former prime ministers Jean Chretien and Brian Mulroney, and several premiers of British Columbia. Tong had been an active gang member since he was a teen and started out as “street muscle,’’ and soon graduated to money laundering and racketeering. The powerful Shui Fong’s thugs in the mid-’90s has been embroiled in a bloody battle with the 14K triad, which is based in Hong Kong, for control of Macao’s lucrative gambling and loansharking business. When police went looking for him after Macao police and the Chinese government brokered a “ceasefire’’ between the gangs, he had disappeared. Tong had apparently been meticulously plotting an escape to Canada for three years. He initially applied for Canadian landed immigrant status under the immigrant investor program through the Canadian high commission in Hong Kong in 1994. In June of the same year, he purchased his home on Fraserview Drive in southeast Vancouver. As the war in Macao heated up, Tong’s lawyer withdrew the immigration application in Hong Kong, where Canadian officials had identified him as a gang leader. Tong then took his family to Los Angeles and applied again through the Canadian consulate. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the average time for an application to be processed by the Los Angeles consular office between January and July 1996 was nine months. Tong’s application was handled in four months from start to finish, and it seems no one in the Los Angeles office made the necessary checks to reveal that he had a criminal background or that his application was nixed earlier in Hong Kong. A government investigation concluded that Tong had slipped through the cracks because of “human error made by conscientious employees working in busy office” which had let the word out it was “open for business’’ and became an “overflow’’ post for Asian applications. What it did not say was that corruption was rife at the Canadian consulate in Los Angeles at that time, with staff stealing $177,000 from the visa office and chronic security lapses. After Tong’s arrival in Vancouver, his rivals in Hong Kong hooked up with another established Asian organized crime boss in B.C. and ordered a hit on him. Tong’s luxury house in east Vancouver was sprayed with bullets in the summer of 1997 and he was reportedly the target of another failed assassination attempt on South West Marine Drive. The attacks were linked Tong’s main rival, the Macao mobster known as Broken Tooth — despite his full set of gleaming teeth. Broken Tooth, or Wan Kuok-koi, according to intelligence officials in Canada and the United States, has access to an army of thousands internationally. He has been monitored trying to set up an arms factory in Cambodia and shopping for missiles, rockets and tanks. In B.C., one of Broken Tooth’s allies was Simon Kwok Chow, who is serving time in Canada for a range of charges from murder to extortion. Chow, a father of two who has lived in Canada for 16 years, until his arrest in the late ’90s by Vancouver police. He was listed as the sole principal of Boss Investments Co. Ltd., the owner of Embassy Billiards in Coquitlam. His address was the location of Club Dynasty, 248 E. 2nd Ave. in Vancouver. The two locations and a defunct business called Catwalk Billiards in Richmond were linked to a complex extortion network targeting up to 200 Asian high-school kids. Police say they were forced, through threats or assaults, to pay $60 each to join pool halls. The pool halls were fronts for the 14K gang. Police investigating organized crime in the Lower Mainland said Simon Chow was a “heroin broker’’ and senior member of the 14K. Nicknamed 426 or Red Pole Fighter, Chow controlled a large cell of Chinese secret-society members in Canada. He was in line to take over the international operations of the triad, say some intelligence reports. Another of the gangsters linked to this group was a Vancouver area loan shark known as Kwok Chung Tam. When police raided his home in Burnaby, they found a couple of semi-automatic handguns, ammunition, a silencer, a half-pound of raw opium and almost $80,000 in cash — along with a photo of Kwok seated on a couch with then-premier Glen Clark. The picture was taken in April 1996 when Kwok Tam, as he was known, was introduced to the premier at his constituency office. The premier’s office denied Clark knew the gangster and said he was one of hundreds of people pictured with the premier. In March of 2000, Immigration Canada conducted an internal investigation into problems at its missions which allowed unqualified applicants and those with criminal backgrounds to enter Canada. A RCMP memo on the inquiry had officers describing this report as having taken a “carpet-sweeping approach.” One RCMP officer, referring to the Tong Sang Lai file out of Los Angeles, wrote: “Shocked beyond belief and utterly disturbed by the report, are the kindest words I can express on my views of the outcome of this so called [immigration Canada’s] Administrative Investigation.” © Copyright © The Province Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/alleged ...ed Vancouver/7915274/story.html#ixzz2K0PFRKpC

This building in Shanghai is alleged in a report by the Internet security firm Mandiant as the home of a Chinese military-led hacking group after the firm reportedly traced a host of cyberattacks to the building in Shanghai’s northern suburb of Gaoqiao. Canada is among the countries that has been targeted by a sophisticated hacking group believed to be backed by a secretive unit of the Chinese government, according to a report released Tuesday by an American computer security firm. The report by Mandiant identified the hackers, known collectively as APT1, as “one of the most prolific cyber-espionage groups” and suggested they were supported by Shanghai-based Unit 61398 of the People’s Liberation Army. The hackers have waged attacks on an array of industries, mostly in the United States, but also in Britain and Canada, including an attack last September on Calgary-based Telvent Canada, which provides IT systems for critical infrastructure, the report said. China’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the report Tuesday as “groundless,” and the Defence Ministry denied any involvement in hacking attacks. But David Skillicorn, a computing professor and cyber-hacking expert at Queen’s University, said the evidence contained in the report was “damning.” “It can’t be anything but Chinese government-sponsored,” he said. “This is a huge pile of evidence.” Particularly worrisome, Skillicorn said, is that the Chinese hackers may not just be setting their sights on stealing companies’ secrets but could be looking to target critical infrastructure as well, which could have “disastrous” consequences. Last September, Telvent Canada, which creates software to help monitor energy-related infrastructure, including power grids and oil and gas pipelines, notified its customers about a security breach. The computer security blog KrebsOnSecurity.com reported at the time that the breach spanned operations in the U.S., Canada and Spain, and that a Chinese hacking group was likely to blame. The Mandiant report said Tuesday that its analysts linked the attack to APT1 “based on the tools and infrastructure that the hackers used to exploit and gain access to the system.” Martin Hanna, a spokesman for Schneider Electric, which owns Telvent, said in an email that the company has been working with its customers and is also actively working with law enforcement and security specialists. APT1, which is also known in the security community as “Comment Crew,” has been responsible for stealing hundreds of terabytes of data since 2006 from at least 141 organizations spanning 20 industries — including information technology, aerospace, public administration, satellite and telecommunications, scientific research and energy, the Mandiant report said. Targeting mostly English-speaking countries, this group of hackers has been able to access organizations’ technology blueprints, proprietary manufacturing processes, test results, business plans, pricing documents, partnership agreements, and emails and contact lists, the report said. Mandiant said it traced APT1’s activities to four networks in Shanghai, two of which serve the Pudong New Area, which is also where the Chinese army’s Unit 61398 is located. Unit 61398 is staffed by hundreds, perhaps thousands of people Its personnel are trained in computer security and computer network operations and are required to be proficient in English, Mandiant said. “The nature of APT1’s targeted victims and the group’s infrastructure and tactics align with the mission and infrastructure of PLA Unit 61398,” the report concluded. Joe Stewart, director of malware research for Dell SecureWorks, said in an interview Tuesday that though he was hesitant to draw a direct link between APT1 and the Chinese government, the proof offered by Mandiant was pretty convincing. The security community has been discussing a “Shanghai nexus” for Chinese-based attacks as far back as 2011, he said. Stewart said though the Chinese hackers have launched attacks on energy infrastructure companies, it remains unclear whether they intend to do any harm to physical infrastructure. Still, the ongoing attacks should serve as a wake-up call to organizations to protect themselves. While some companies have heeded the warnings, others don’t seem to want to admit their vulnerabilities and are “just burying it internally,” he said. U.S. President Barack Obama addressed cyber-security during his state of the union address last week. “We know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets,” Obama said. “Now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, and our air traffic control systems. We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our economy.” Skillicorn, the Queen’s professor, said he doesn’t think the Canadian government has addressed the cyber-security problem sufficiently and currently lacks a clear lead agency on the matter. He suggested that Communications Security Establishment Canada could fulfil that role. Julie Carmichael, a spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, said Public Safety Canada is the lead on cyber security. “Our government takes cyber security seriously and operates on the advice of security experts,” she said in an email. “Our government recently made significant investments ($245 million) in a Cyber Security Strategy designed to defend against electronic threats, hacking and cyber espionage,”Carmichael said. Read more: http://www.canada.com/technology/Ca...ernment unit/7987513/story.html#ixzz2LPfW1uXN

An American cybersecurity firm has linked one of the world's most prolific groups of computer hackers to the Chinese government, saying in a new report that an extensive cyber-espionage campaign is being waged from a location near Shanghai. The security firm, Mandiant, detailed the allegations in a 60-page report published Tuesday that describes the group's tactics over a six-year period. The Virginia-based Mandiant, which helps companies detect and respond to cyber threats, said it has observed the group of hackers -- called the "comment crew" -- systematically steal hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations across 20 industries worldwide since 2006. Mandiant claims the activity can be traced to four networks near Shanghai -- with some operations taking place in a location that is also the headquarters of Unit 61398, a secret division of China's military. "The sheer scale and duration of sustained attacks against such a wide set of industries from a singularly identified group based in China leaves little doubt about the organization behind [the group]," Mandiant said. "We believe the totality of the evidence we provide in this document bolsters the claim that [the group] is Unit 61398." Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei dismissed the hacking charges on Tuesday, insisting that China is the victim of many cyberattacks -- most originating in the United States. "Making baseless accusations based on premature analysis is irresponsible and unprofessional," he said. "China resolutely opposes any form of hacking activities." Last month, the Chinese defense ministry said the country's military "has never supported any hacker activities." The latest accusation against Beijing comes amid concerns about the breadth and depth of cyberattacks originating in China. Recently, several leading U.S. news organizations reported their computer systems had been attacked by China-based hackers. Mandiant estimates that hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people work within Unit 61398, which is housed in a 12-story, 130,663 square-foot facility. Organizations in English-speaking countries are the primary victims of the comment crew -- making up 87% of the 141 attacks observed by Mandiant. Of that, 115 attacks targeted organizations in the United States. The hackers have a "well-defined attack methodology," and Mandiant said the group has stolen large volumes of intellectual property, including technology blueprints, proprietary manufacturing processes and business plans. The report did not list companies or agencies that have been attacked, but the comment crew is known to have attacked Coca-Cola, security firm RSA, and consultancy Chertoff Group. The Coca-Cola (CCE, Fortune 500) hack occurred in 2009 when the beverage giant was trying to purchase China's Huiyuan Juice Group. According to reports, comment crew stole Coca-Cola's negotiation strategy along with other information about the proposed offer. The deal was scuttled just days after the hack, when the Chinese government said it could not accept the deal on antitrust grounds. RSA was attacked by the group in 2011, which compromised the security of some of its SecurID tokens used to gain entry into corporate systems. Using information gained from the RSA hack, the group subsequently attacked aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin (LMT, Fortune 500). All of these attacks started the same way: via a cleverly worded emails -- written in perfect English -- that appeared to be from someone inside the company. Instead, it contained malicious software designed to gain access to the corporations networks. Mandiant was able to pinpoint the identities of three individuals working with the group. The report identifies the hackers who use the monikers "Ugly Gorilla," "dota" and "SuperHard." It tracks their activities in an unusually detailed manner, including information on their e-mail accounts, cell phones and hacking techniques. Government and intelligence officials in the United States are increasingly concerned about the threats posed by cybercrime, especially from government actors. Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last year that a cyberattack could be crippling, citing risks to the power grid, Wall Street and the financial system. "We are literally getting hundreds of thousands of attacks everyday that try to exploit information in various agencies and departments and frankly throughout this country," Panetta said. In a statement, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the administration is aware of the Mandiant report, and is acting to negate these threats. "The United States has substantial and growing concerns about the threats to U.S. economic and national security posed by cyber intrusions," Vietor said. "We have repeatedly raised our concerns at the highest levels about cyber theft with senior Chinese officials, including in the military, and we will continue to do so." Earlier this month, President Obama signed an executive order designed to address the country's most basic cybersecurity needs -- and highlighted the effort in his State of the Union address. The order will make it easier for private companies in control of the nation's critical infrastructure to share information about cyberattacks with the government. The order also directs the government to work with the private sector on standards that will help protect companies from cybercrime. In recent weeks, The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal havedisclosed that their computer networks had been targeted by hackers in China. The New York Times, which hired Mandiant to help mitigate the threat, reported Tuesday that the comment crew was not the source of the attack on its network. China is not the only country believed to be involved in cyberattacks. The existence of several other state-sponsored cyberweapons have also been reported in recent years, with names like Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame. The U.S. government is widely believed to have played a role in developing some of those viruses, with an eye toward containing Iran. http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/19/technology/china-military-cybercrime/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

Cybersecurity firm Mandiant says this building in Shanghai is home to Unit 61398, a secret wing of the People's Liberation Army. HONG KONG (CNNMoney) What is happening inside 208 Datong Road in Shanghai? Definitely no computer hacking, according to China's military, which said Wednesday that it is not engaged in cyberattacks of any sort. The forceful denial comes a day after Virginia-based cybersecurity firm Mandiant released a 60-page report detailing the activities of a hacking collective it claims has direct ties to China's military. Mandiant says it has watched the group systematically steal hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations across 20 industries worldwide since 2006. Mandiant claims the activity -- perpetrated by a group called the "comment crew" -- can be traced to four networks near Shanghai, with some operations taking place in a nondescript building on Datong Road that is also the headquarters of Unit 61398, a secret wing of the People's Liberation Army. Geng Yansheng, a spokesman for China's Ministry of National Defense, characterized the charges Wednesday as "groundless both in facts and legal basis." The spokesman offered, for the first time, a detailed rebuttal of Mandiant's charges. The report relies too heavily on the tracking of IP addresses, Geng said, referring to the digital identifiers which are stolen "almost everyday." "The report, in only relying on linking IP addresses to reach a conclusion the hacking attacks originated from China, lacks technical proof," the spokesman said, according to a transcript posted on the ministry's website. Geng also resorted to a somewhat arcane legal argument. "There is still no internationally clear, unified definition of what constitutes a hacking attack," Geng said. "There is no legal evidence behind the report subjectively concluding that the everyday gathering of online information is online spying." Related: Wake up, America! China is attacking The Obama administration appears unconvinced -- and says it is acting to counter the threats. "We have repeatedly raised our concerns at the highest levels about cybertheft with senior Chinese officials, including in the military, and we will continue to do so," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said Tuesday. Mandiant estimates that hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people work within Unit 61398, which is housed in a 12-story, 130,663 square-foot facility. Organizations in English-speaking countries are the primary victims of the comment crew -- making up 87% of the 141 attacks observed by Mandiant. Of that, 115 attacks targeted organizations in the United States. Related: Your antivirus software probably won't prevent a cyberattack The hackers have a "well-defined attack methodology," and Mandiant said the group has stolen large volumes of intellectual property, including technology blueprints, proprietary manufacturing processes and business plans. The report did not list companies or agencies that have been attacked, but the comment crew is known to have attacked Coca-Cola, security firm RSA, and consultancy Chertoff Group. China is not the only country believed to be involved in cyberattacks. The existence of several other state-sponsored cyberweapons has also been reported in recent years, with names like Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame. The U.S. government is widely believed to have played a role in developing some of those viruses, with an eye toward containing Iran. -- CNN's Yuli Yang and Tian Shao contributed to this report http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/20/technology/china-cyber-hacking-denial/

Actions by the People's Republic -- intentional or not -- have created the worst regional environment for China since Tiananmen. One of the elementary rules of foreign policy is when you are in a hole, stop digging. But judging by their recent behavior, Beijing’s foreign policy mandarins and national security establishment are clearly in violation of this rule. Despite the diplomat heat China has received for its tough stance on territorial disputes in recent months, the Chinese Foreign Ministry apparently seemed to believe that it could strengthen Chinese claims symbolically by issuing a new passport containing a map that claims the disputed maritime areas in the South China Sea and the contested territories along the Sino-Indian border. The reaction was predictable. Southeast Asian countries, particularly Vietnam and the Philippines, protested loudly. India retaliated by promising to stamp visas containing its own map on Chinese passports. At around the same time as the diplomatic uproar over the new Chinese passport design, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) conducted its first successful landing and take-off operations from its retrofitted aircraft carrier. The televised test might have boosted the Chinese military’s image and self-confidence, but the message this event sent around the region, given China’s hardline position on territorial disputes and its neighbors’ fears of the PLA’s growing military capabilities, cannot be very reassuring. But that is not the end of the actions taken by China recently that are likely to cost Beijing’s new government dearly. A few days before Japan’s Diet elections on December 16, which are expected to produce a right-wing government with deep antipathy toward Beijing, the Chinese government escalated its challenge to Japan’s territorial claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands by flying an official, albeit unarmed, maritime surveillance plane over the airspace of the disputed islands. As expected, the move incensed Tokyo and can only be expected to bolster the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) chances and lend more credence to their call for a tougher policy toward China. Obviously, it is inconceivable that Chinese policymakers intentionally desired such boomerangs with these recent moves. One possible explanation is that this is simply a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Given the fragmentation and stove-piped decision-making process inside the Chinese national security establishment, lack of policy coordination is certainly a systemic weakness. However, internal disarray is no excuse. The damage done to China’s image and national interests is real and can be long-lasting. The challenge facing the new leadership of General Secretary Xi Jinping is how to dig China out of its own geopolitical hole. Because of Beijing’s foreign policy missteps in the last three years, China today faces the worst regional environment since Tiananmen. Its relations with Japan are at a record low; China-ASEAN ties have similarly deteriorated due to the South China Sea disputes and China’s heavy-handed use of its clout to divide ASEAN. The Sino-American relationship is increasingly turning into one of strategic rivalry. Even South Korea, which has sought to strengthen Seoul-Beijing ties for two decades, has distanced itself from China because of China’s reluctance or inability to restrain North Korea’s aggressive acts (its latest missile test is but one example). It is hard to know whether Beijing’s foreign policy establishment sees things the same way. But if they happen to agree with this assessment, they must act quickly to reverse a self-defeating strategy. The most urgent action item is to stabilize Beijing-Tokyo ties. The actions taken by Beijing to contest Tokyo’s claims to the disputed islands in the East China Sea are fraught with risks of escalation. While they may be designed to force the Japanese to the negotiating table, the Chinese government needs to take extra precaution to avoid dangerous confrontations and escalations. Under current circumstances, the smarter way is not to escalate, but deescalate, so that Beijing can give Tokyo an opportunity to respond. With anti-China sentiments high among a broad segment of Japan’s population and elites, it is unwise to expect Tokyo to meet Chinese escalations with concessions. Clearly, Beijing may have to wait for the outcome of the Diet elections on December 16. Should the LDP win, the Chinese government will be smart to send conciliatory signals to the new Japanese government. Of course, Shinzo Abe, the leader of the LDP, has taken a hardline on China during the campaign, but he should be given a chance to show his sensibility and pragmatism. China will not hurt itself by displaying some flexibility and willingness to compromise initially. If Japan rejects such friendly overtures, China will have ample time to play a game of tit-for-tat. Parallel to its efforts to stabilize Sino-Japanese relations, Beijing’s second policy priority is to defuse its tensions with ASEAN over the South China Sea disputes. Chinese policymakers must first realize that its stance on the maritime disputes in the South China Sea has painted Beijing into a corner. The historical claims are increasingly difficult to defend. The insistence on bilateral negotiations, not multilateral ones, looks too self-serving. The use of a proxy such as Cambodia to undermine ASEAN’s unity on the South China Sea disputes may be a temporary tactical success, but it comes with long-term strategic costs and will ultimately be futile. A bold move for the new Chinese government to take is to do a U-turn on the South China Sea. It can do so by announcing its willingness to negotiate in a multilateral setting and adhere to existing international laws, not historical claims. This dramatic change of policy will not necessarily produce an outcome totally unfavorable to China. Because most of Vietnam and the Philippines’ claims are equally weak under existing international laws, shifting China’s position will not necessarily strengthen their claims. The practical effect will be prolonged negotiations that can defuse the tensions – and repair China’s tattered image as a bully. Putting U.S.-China ties on a more solid footing and reversing the dangerous dynamics of strategic competition is more difficult and requires steps that Mr. Xi may not be able to take immediately. The factors driving the U.S. and China toward strategic rivalry are not hard to see: mutual distrust, a shift in relative balance of power, China's military modernization, and a lack of transparency in China's domestic political system. It is impossible to address all these factors, and some of them defy short-term solutions. However, Mr. Xi will find that the immediate key to improving Sino-American relations will not be found in China’s policy toward the United States, but in its policy toward its neighbors. It is the fears China has aroused among its neighbors that have given the United States the strategic leverage to deal with China and to view China from darker lenses. So it will be China’s success in reassuring its neighbors and the United States, not with rhetoric but real policy changes, that will help dig Beijing out of its current geopolitical hole. http://thediplomat.com/2012/12/15/the-bullies-of-beijing-chinas-image-problem/3/

Raping a child in my opinion is the worse.

I simply think that it's not a good idea.