First in Canada unexplained wealth order issued in B.C. against alleged pot growers

By Canadian Press on August 15, 2025.

VICTORIA — British Columbia’s Public Safety Minister Nina Krieger says she’s “pleased” that the B.C. Supreme Court has issued Canada’s first unexplained wealth order against two accused illicit pot growers tracked down by police who followed a trail of blood after a shooting.

A court ruling issued in Victoria on Thursday says Jianxin Huang and Xiao Zhen Jean Li are facing a civil forfeiture action for three properties and nearly $1.5 million in cash allegedly tied to illicit cannabis production and the failure to declare taxable income.

The ruling says Vancouver police were called to a property on East 28th Ave. in September 2023 for reports of shots fired and followed a trail of blood to the rear of a property on Victoria Drive owned by Li, while a person was found nearby with multiple gunshot wounds and later died.

It says a search of the home turned up nearly $1.5 million in cash, more than 75 kilograms of cannabis and Canada Child Benefit and BC Family Benefits applications in Li’s name that claimed she made less than $1,000 a year.

The ruling says both Li and Huang reported “minimal” taxable income for nearly two decades, but Li bought the Victoria Drive home in 2005 for $588,000, another home with Huang in 2013 for $705,000 in cash and a property in Abbotsford in 2020 for $1.7 million.

A statement from Krieger on Friday says unexplained wealth orders require people to detail how they acquired their assets “to prove that their luxury property, cars or cash were obtained legally, or risk losing them.”

The ruling says both Huang and Li were the subject of multiple suspicious transaction reports to Canada’s money laundering watchdog, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, from four different banks between 2017 and 2023.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 15, 2025.

The Canadian Press