Ex-Mountie accused of helping China pleads not guilty at foreign interference trial

Judy Trinh reports on the court case of a former undercover RCMP officer, accused of working with Beijing to coerce individuals to return to China.

VANCOUVER -- Nearly three years after William Majcher was first arrested for alleged foreign interference on behalf of China, the retired RCMP officer stood up in the Supreme Court of British Columbia and pleaded not guilty to one charge under the Security of Information Act.

Majcher is accused of engaging in “preparatory acts” to pressure a B.C. millionaire to return to China in 2017. The Crown says Vancouver businessman Hongwei “Kevin” Sun was wanted by Beijing for allegedly stealing the equivalent of C$125 million from a bank in Jilin province.

Majcher’s wife Diane, who travelled from Hong Kong to support him, watched as he entered the plea from behind a glass partition in the courtroom.

The case is being tried in front of Justice Martha Devlin at the B.C. Supreme Court.

“His position is that he did nothing wrong in Canada,” said defence attorney Ian Donaldson on the courthouse steps. He is representing the 63-year-old former Mountie in a judge-alone trial.

“(Majcher) says that he did not take steps preparatory to coercing anybody to do anything.”

Alleged involvement in Project Fox Hunt

In his 22-year career with the RCMP, Majcher specialized in investigating financial crimes. He would go undercover to infiltrate drug cartels and terrorist organizations. He often posed as a money launderer.

After retiring from the RCMP in 2007, Majcher moved to Hong Kong where he founded a firm that specialized in helping companies recoup stolen assets that were being laundered overseas.

Many of his clients were based in China.

Prosecutors allege Majcher made plans to use illegal tactics to help China repatriate a fugitive hiding in Canada.

The Crown is painting Majcher as a corporate bounty hunter who participated in China’s Fox Hunt and Skynet anti-corruption campaigns. The programs were implemented by President Xi Jinping in 2014 to bring back economic fugitives who had fled China.

China has hired ex-law enforcement officers, private investigators and lawyers in western countries to advance its aims.

Human rights organizations have pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses the guise of fighting corruption to turn its Fox Hunt and Skynet programs into tools of transnational repression.

In a 2024 report, Safeguard Defenders, a non-governmental organization, found that China through its police agents and proxies violated the “sovereignty of third nations and the fundamental human rights of targeted individuals.”

The CCP’s policing agencies often used threats, stalking and harassment to persuade its nationals living in western democracies to return to China.

Safeguard Defenders found that some targets were “kidnapped.”

Donaldson says he’s also not aware of “any suggestion that the complainant or alleged victim in this case was going to be kidnapped or that harm would come to him.”

Cache of intercepted emails

Crown witness RCMP Supt. Peter Tsui was a police liaison officer in Beijing in 2017. He testified that Chinese police requested help from the Mounties to arrest Sun but did not provide a translated dossier of the evidence against the Vancouver man.

Canada and China do not have an extradition agreement, and Tsui said that there were no criminal charges against Sun in Canada. Tsui said Canadian officials decided not to help repatriate Sun because China did not provide the necessary documents.

The Crown’s strongest evidence involves a cache of emails seized by the FBI while investigating a separate foreign interference case in the United States.

A 2017 email written by Majcher and intercepted by the FBI refers to a “major real estate mogul in Vancouver” and “over $100M of assets” that have been located.

Majcher writes that he’s waiting for China to issue a global arrest warrant “so we can impress upon the crook that we hold the keys to his future.”

The email does not explicitly name Kevin Sun, nor is Sun, Majcher’s alleged target, on the list of fugitives named under Project Fox Hunt or Skynet, according to Donaldson.

To secure a conviction, prosecutors must prove that Majcher intended to commit coercive or unlawful acts. Donaldson argues that the Crown has provided circumstantial evidence, but nothing substantial.