Former RCMP officer William Majcher, middle, leaves the B.C. Supreme Court with his wife and supporters in Vancouver on Wednesday.Rich Lam/The Canadian Press
A former RCMP officer who was accused of helping China pursue an alleged white-collar fugitive living in the Vancouver region was acquitted on Wednesday, as a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove that his actions were illegal.
William Majcher was charged with violating Canada’s Security of Information Act over allegations that in 2017 he helped Chinese police prepare to threaten Hongwei (Kevin) Sun, a Vancouver-area real estate investor accused of a massive fraud in China.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Martha Devlin said the case against Mr. Majcher hinged on a single e-mail chain between Mr. Majcher and a colleague that discussed using an Interpol “red notice” as leverage against Mr. Sun. She said the Crown had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt he had operated with the “specific intent” to unlawfully help Chinese police.
Mr. Majcher, who retired from one of the RCMP’s regional financial crime units 20 years ago to begin a new career in Hong Kong as a private financial investigator, was arrested in Vancouver in 2023 in the midst of a national debate about Chinese government interference and as the country’s intelligence services faced pressure to show they were addressing the issue.
Mr. Majcher told reporters outside a Vancouver courthouse that the case has devastated his family because he was prohibited from leaving Canada while on bail, which kept him from seeing his young kids in Hong Kong.
“I want to return to my children. I want to try to rebuild my businesses,” he said alongside his wife, who had retrieved his passport from prosecutors moments earlier.
His lead lawyer Ian Donaldson told reporters the political discourse in Canada regarding China and foreign interference may have had something to with the RCMP’s investigation of his client and the “very significant public resources” consumed by it.
“Today, of course, with irony, America is thought to be the enemy and China is our friend,” he remarked.
Following the acquittal, Crown prosecutors declined to comment outside the courtroom.
China, India among countries active in foreign interference and spying in Canada, CSIS says
The RCMP did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the failure of the investigation to net a conviction.
The Crown alleged that Mr. Majcher was prepared to “induce by threat, accusation, menace of violence” Mr. Sun to return tens of millions of dollars he allegedly gained through fraud and invested into Vancouver real estate.
The trial heard that in June of 2017, Mr. Majcher told a former FBI agent and colleague by e-mail he had spent the past few weeks talking with Chinese officials and a lawyer in Vancouver, and that he was hoping to get a copy of an international arrest warrant to “impress upon the crook that we hold the keys to his future.”
“If he fights then [there] will be extradition request and lengthier process but we feel he is motivated to co-operate as we can guarantee him his passport and no jail time,” one of the two e-mails in a thread from that month said.
Justice Devlin said the Crown was asking her to make “simply too far a leap” with its “entirely circumstantial” evidence in those e-mails.
She told the court that, despite Mr. Majcher’s “somewhat inflammatory” language in this e-mail thread, his reference to speaking with a lawyer could mean he was pursuing an “entirely lawful” recovery of these assets.
Mr. Majcher speaks with reporters outside the B.C. Supreme Court with his wife after he was found not guilty in his trial.Rich Lam/The Canadian Press
Outside court, Mr. Majcher said he did nothing further with regards to Mr. Sun after the lawyer in question determined there was “no legal path forward” for pursuing the allegedly misappropriated funds. During his trial, the court heard China rescinded its international arrest warrant for Mr. Sun some months after Mr. Majcher’s brief involvement.
The trial also heard that the RCMP had previously reached out to Mr. Sun at the behest of their Chinese counterparts to talk about the fraud allegations in China, but he refused to meet with them. The RCMP considered the case closed, the trial heard.
In explaining her decision, Justice Devlin also noted that Mr. Majcher had unpacked his working relationship with the Chinese government around this time in a conversation with his past boss, Peter German, a former Mountie and prominent anti-money-laundering expert, who was the first witness called in last month’s trial.
“I find it at least reasonable to infer that Mr. Majcher would not direct the attention of a former high-ranking law enforcement official towards his activities with the [People’s Republic of China] if Mr. Majcher intended and understood those activities to be aimed at unlawful extortive conduct,” Justice Devlin wrote in her ruling.
In the weeks leading up to the trial, she dealt several blows to the prosecution, ruling that the RCMP violated Mr. Majcher’s constitutional right not to be arbitrarily detained when officers arrested him at Vancouver International Airport.
She also ruled the RCMP’s grounds for the arrest were premature and based on a “hunch or generalized suspicion” that Mr. Majcher was conspiring with the People’s Republic of China.