A Quebec man has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for smuggling counterfeit Canadian identity documents produced in China, according to the Canada Border Services Agency.
Jonghun Lee, 41, pleaded guilty on Nov. 18 at the Laval courthouse to attempting to import 509 counterfeit Canadian permanent resident cards and 506 fake Alberta driver’s licences, according to a Dec. 3
CBSA press release. Lee was also convicted of forging Canadian citizenship cards, Canadian permanent resident cards, work permits, and driver’s licences from various Canadian provinces.
CBSA launched an investigation following the interception of a courier parcel from China at the Mirabel office on Jan. 14, 2022. A search warrant was later executed at Lee’s residence, where officers seized completed and unfinished fake documents, document manufacturing equipment, a computer, cell phones, money printing presses, and nearly $140,000 in Canadian and U.S. currency.
“The Canada Border Services Agency is actively working to counter fraud and identity theft to maintain the integrity of official documents issued by Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial authorities,” CBSA said in the press release, urging the public to report any suspicious cross-border activity.
When asked if this was a unique case of fraudulent documents imported from China, CBSA spokesperson Luke Reimer pointed to a separate incident at the Armstrong port of entry in British Columbia.
In August 2023, CBSA arrested two travellers after discovering fraudulent permanent resident and Social Insurance Number cards in their vehicle and personal belongings. The travellers were also found with over $10,000 in unreported cash. All items, including the cash, were seized with no terms of release, according to
a CBSA press release.
Reimer also referenced a
2020 case involving an Edmonton resident charged with smuggling counterfeit Edmonton Transit Service bus passes from China.
On June 26, 2020, CBSA officers at Edmonton International Airport (EIA) intercepted a package from China, declared as “book and business cards.” Inside, they found 1,047 fake bus passes worth about $101,500. Further investigation showed that real EIS bus passes were included in the package as samples for the mass-produced fraudulent ones. The recipient, 31-year-old Yuexuan Wu of Edmonton, was arrested in connection with the smuggling.
In addition to counterfeit documents, China has been identified as the source of fake $2 coins imported into Canada.
A report by the RCMP,
made public in November, detailed the case of Toronto resident Daixiong He, who allegedly imported and deposited about 45,000 counterfeit $2 coins at branches of three major banks throughout 2021, until his arrest in May 2022. In a
separate case, Quebec resident Jean-François Généreux was sentenced to nine months in prison for importing and circulating over 26,000 counterfeit $2 coins made in China.
The federal government has
pledged to strengthen border security and crack down on cross-border crimes with the United States after President-elect Donald Trump threatened a 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods if Canada cannot curb illicit drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
In response to Trump’s tariff threat, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc issued a
statement saying that Canada “places the highest priority on border security and the integrity of our shared border.”
