{"id":10777,"date":"2020-10-07T10:10:13","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T14:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/?p=10777"},"modified":"2021-02-02T17:14:11","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T22:14:11","slug":"alleged-mastermind-of-lavish-mansion-casino-raided-by-police-met-twice-with-prime-minister-justin-trudeau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/alleged-mastermind-of-lavish-mansion-casino-raided-by-police-met-twice-with-prime-minister-justin-trudeau\/","title":{"rendered":"Alleged mastermind of lavish mansion casino raided by police met twice with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tom Blackwell<\/strong>, National Post<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news that emerged last week about Wei Wei was attention-grabbing to say the least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Police announced the Toronto-area real estate developer had been charged after officers raided a lavish, well-armed and illegal casino<\/a> that was uniquely located inside a sprawling mansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wei is alleged to have been the mastermind behind the high-end \u201cMackenzie No. 5 Club,\u201d where police seized an assault rifle from his bedroom, gaming tables and more than $1 million in cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe money moving through these underground casinos leads to huge profits for criminals that fund other ventures such as prostitution and drug trafficking,\u201d York Regional Police said in a statement last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long ago, however, the businessman accused of being at the centre of it all was moving in some of Canada\u2019s loftiest business and political circles, partly as an advocate for China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wei met at least twice in 2016 with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, including at a controversial Liberal fundraiser<\/a> in the home of another wealthy entrepreneur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wei also was among a delegation<\/a> of four representing a Chinese government-endorsed industry group that met separately with Trudeau. Another member of the delegation donated $1 million to the Trudeau Foundation and the erection of a statue honoring the prime minister\u2019s father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the fundraising event and the gift fed a controversy over alleged cash-for-access schemes that gave rich donors face time with Trudeau. The uproar prompted the Liberals to reform their fundraising rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liberal spokesman Matteo Rossi did not address questions about Wei specifically, but said the party now has the toughest and most transparent standards for fundraising in federal politics. That includes allowing media coverage of events and hosting them in publicly accessible spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs his party\u2019s new leader, it\u2019s time that Erin O\u2019Toole also did the right thing and committed to stop barring journalists from the Conservative party\u2019s behind-closed-doors fundraising events,\u201d said Rossi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

York Regional Police painted an eye-opening picture of the underground casino they found in the suburbs north of Toronto. Wei and his wife, Xing Yue Chen, bought the opulent, 20,000-square-foot estate in 2015 for $4.7 million, with a mortgage of $3 million, property records indicate. Police say it\u2019s now worth $9 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of a series of raids carried out in July, but only announced last week, officers seized $1.5 million in high-quality liquor and wine and 11 guns as well as gambling equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The house appeared to have bedrooms for the use of its clients, and allegedly may have been trafficking women for prostitution, officers said. Police who had approached the home earlier allegedly faced intimidation from guards posted there, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wei, 52, his wife, 48, and 25-year-old daughter were charged with keeping a common gaming house and other offences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the operation\u2019s existence was not exactly a closely held secret. The National Post<\/em> obtained an elegantly printed invitation from Wei that announced a \u201csoft opening cocktail party\u201d for what it called the \u201cMackenzie No. 5 Club.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
An invitation sent out last year announces a \u201csoft-opening cocktail party\u201d for the new \u201cMackenzie Number 5 Club,\u201d what police now say was a high-end, illegal casino. Photo by Handout<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Hundreds of people attended the event in November 2019, including a number of local politicians, said an acquaintance of Wei\u2019s who asked not to be named. She remembers line-ups of people waiting to take selfies with the \u201cVIPs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the source did not notice formal casino equipment, she said she saw many of the guests playing cards and gambling there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Wei went from a well-connected property developer to an alleged black-market gaming boss is not clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wei couldn\u2019t be reached for comment, but the source said he came to Canada about 10 years ago under the investor-immigrant program. As head of Skywalk Investment, he\u2019s known for buying and selling real estate in the Toronto area, serving on a committee<\/a> of the Canada-China Realty Professional Association, which says it is dedicated to encouraging development and investment opportunities in the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A person named Wei Wei owns almost 50 properties in Toronto alone, land-registry records indicate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the May 2016 Liberal fundraiser hosted by fellow businessman Benson Wong, he is pictured<\/a> in a group photo two down from Trudeau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guests were charged $1,500 to attend, according to reports at the time, sparking accusations that the party was peddling access to the prime minister. Among the guests \u2014 though as a foreign citizen purportedly not making a donation \u2014 was Chinese mogul Zhang Bin<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weeks later, Zhang and another Chinese tycoon donated $1 million to the Trudeau Foundation, named after the prime minister\u2019s father, and the University of Montreal law school. Most of the money was earmarked for student grants, but some was to be used to erect a statue to the late Pierre Trudeau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhang is also president of the China Cultural Industry Association, tasked with developing cultural businesses and boosting \u201cthe soft power of Chinese culture.\u201d The same month as the fundraiser, Wei joined Zhang and two others in a delegation<\/a> representing the association at another session with Trudeau, this time to discuss cultural exchanges between the countries, according to the group\u2019s website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elections Canada lists only three donations<\/a> to the Liberal party for a person named Wei Wei. One was to the Markham-Thornhill riding association for $551, dated May 16, 2016 of that year, about the time of the Trudeau event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wei also seems to have been involved in Chinese-Canadian community groups with apparent ties to the Chinese government. He was a founding director<\/a> of the Heifei Friendship Association in Canada and, said the source, has been\u00a0 involved in the Anhui Community Association of Canada, both linked to the Anhui province in China. The latter group signed a controversial ad last year with several other Chinese-Canadian organizations. It backed the Hong Kong government in its conflict with democracy protesters, using similar language to Beijing\u2019s official pronouncements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: National Post, October 7, 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wei Wei met at least twice in 2016 with Trudeau, including at a controversial Liberal fundraiser in the home of another wealthy entrepreneur<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Wei Wei met at least twice in 2016 with Trudeau, including at a controversial Liberal fundraiser in the home of another wealthy entrepreneur","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,650,32,21],"tags":[590],"class_list":["post-10777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-order","category-lottery","category-ontario","category-politics","tag-justin-trudeau"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Wei-Wei_Justin-Trudeau_2016.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9WpGR-2NP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10777"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10782,"href":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10777\/revisions\/10782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadainfo.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}