Huawei's Fake Protest in Canada - #FakeProtest

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The shady history of a phone number used to set up a sham protest
How much can you learn from 10 digits? In the case of the phone number used to organize the fake rally in support of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver earlier this year, it unlocks the story of an immigration job scheme in Saskatchewan, an unregistered esthetics school in Ontario, business feuds and lawsuits, and much more.

Geoff Leo

August 9, 2020

Joey Zhang's cellphone number has been the point of contact for some odd, and sometimes dodgy, ventures across the country.

Whether she's running a spa that is never open in rural Saskatchewan; offering phoney jobs to Chinese nationals seeking to immigrate to Canada; pretending to run a registered esthetics school north of Toronto; or helping to organize a fake political protest outside B.C.’s Supreme Court — the same ten digits, 306-999-***9, have often been on the signs, in the ads, or shared in chats.

Over the past 10 years, Joey Zhang, also known as Shu Fang, has created more than 30 businesses in a wide range of industries, from retail to hemp farming to immigration services. The companies were located in Saskatchewan and Ontario.

The pace at which she created companies was sometimes frantic. For example, in just a six-month period in 2011, she created six companies and claimed three different residential addresses in Regina and Saskatoon.

A CBC News investigation of her companies found many of them likely only existed on paper.

The CBC reached out to her on multiple occasions through the 306 phone number to ask about her business practices but she declined to comment.

In 2012, the Saskatchewan government flagged seven of Joey Zhang's companies that offered jobs to Chinese nationals seeking to immigrate to Canada, according to internal documents obtained by CBC News. The job offers would have helped the applicants to qualify for permanent residency.

But Saskatchewan immigration officials determined the jobs were fake and denied the applications. Joey Zhang's immigration consultant, Jun Cheng, was suspended for two years from participating in Saskatchewan's immigration system in 2013.

Joey Zhang's phone number links her to the fake rally in support of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou outside the B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver back in January. (Tencent QQ)
CBC has learned that in other cases, Joey Zhang was offering Chinese nationals the opportunity to become a permanent resident by investing in one of her businesses.

Her connection to this extensive collection of companies came to the CBC's attention through her cellphone number — the same number that linked her to a sham protest earlier this year outside a politically explosive court hearing involving Canada, the U.S. and China.


‘Free Ms Meng’
On the morning of Monday, Jan. 20, 2020, Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, was set to arrive at the B.C. Supreme Court in downtown Vancouver for a hearing on a high-profile U.S. request to extradite her on fraud charges.

The case put Canada in the middle of a high-stakes dispute between two superpowers.

Days after Meng's arrest on Dec. 1, 2018, China detained two Canadians, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor. They remain in prison and have now been charged with spying. China denies the cases against the pair are tied to Meng’s arrest.

Just outside the Vancouver courthouse, a small group of mostly young protesters held handwritten signs that said, among other things, "Free Ms Meng."

According to people paid to protest at Meng's January hearing in Vancouver, a woman named Joey provided them with the signs. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)
Media from around the world were there, including CCTV, China's largest news agency. It showed images of the protest and reported that “on the day of the hearing, local people gathered outside the court calling for the release of Meng."

It turns out, however, the protest was fake. The participants, including 20-year-old MeKenna Bonson, were paid actors.

"I didn’t realize how big this was," she said. “I had to go after and Google what Huawei was because I had never heard that in my life."

Bonson said she was invited by a friend who asked if she'd like to make $150 for two hours of work.

She arrived at the courthouse early that Monday morning and was introduced to a woman named Joey, she said.

Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou arrives at the B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver following a lunch break during her hearing on Jan. 20, 2020. (Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters)
Bonson said Joey disappeared for a moment.

"She came back and had the red signs that you can see in the pictures that a lot of people were holding. So I assume either she made them or someone got them made for her and she just basically handed them out to us."

CBC News showed Bonson pictures of Joey Zhang taken from her social media accounts.

"That, from my memory, looks a lot like the person that I talked to," she said.

When CBC showed MeKenna Bonson pictures of Joey Zhang, seen here, she confirmed they looked like the woman who was handing out signs at the fake Vancouver protest. (Tencent QQ)

‘An easy $100’
Like Bonson, Rudy Varona said he was also caught up in a story he knew nothing about.

The day before the protest, Varona was contacted on WhatsApp by a movie producer named Costa Vassos.

"Do you have any friends ... who might want to make an easy $100 tomorrow?" Vassos wrote. "I need 30 people tomorrow morning from 8:30 to 10:30 in BC super court … They are going to hold up signs and pretend to protest lol."

Varona said he was able to round up several friends for the pretend protest — a fact he now regrets.

Rudy Varona says a woman who identified herself as Joey provided him with protest signs. (Rudy Varona/Facebook)
When reached by CBC News, Costa Vassos said the protest actually wasn't his project.

He said he had been contacted by a woman he'd met while working on a Chinese film a few years earlier named Helen. He said he didn't know her last name.

Costa Vassos, a movie producer, says an acquaintance in the film industry asked him to find some people to pretend to protest at the Vancouver courthouse. (IMDB.com)
He said Helen asked him to help her find some extras for a protest. Vassos said he assumed it was a commercial or music video.

Vancouver-based online media outlet theBreaker.news reported that the woman Vassos was referring to was Helen Zhou, who runs a winery in Richmond, B.C.

When reached by CBC News, Zhou confirmed the outlet's version of events.

"Everything's in the newspaper, right?" she said. "Everything's there already so just forget it. No comment."

Zhou refused to explain why she was paying people to protest at the courthouse. When pressed, she hung up the phone.

Huawei denied having anything to do with the protest, saying in a statement at the time: "Huawei had no involvement with the protesters or supporters outside the Vancouver courthouse and is unaware of any plans by those responsible."

Costa Vassos told CBC he agreed to help Zhou because she seemed to have money and influence.

"She might be somebody that might want to invest in a movie later on down the road," he said. "If I can get somebody to throw $1 million into a movie that we think is a good movie, I'm going to be nice to everybody."

By text, Vassos told Rudy Varona that when he arrived at the courthouse the next morning he should call 306-999-***9.

"This is Helen's number," he wrote.

‘No, I’m Joey’

That's just what Varona did.

"I called her and she told me, 'Hey, can you please go to the Holiday Inn hotel that is one block away from the place,'" said Varona.

"When I arrived there and I asked her, 'Hey, are you Helen?' she told me, 'No, I’m Joey.'"

He said Joey handed him the protest signs, but didn't have much to say.

A Chinese-speaking CBC News journalist called Joey Zhang's cellphone number to ask about her participation in organizing the protest. She denied any involvement.

"No, I was in Toronto," she said.

When the reporter asked for additional details, she hung up.

The phone number, 306-999-***9, has been Joey (Shu Fang) Zhang's contact number since at least August 2013.

It has quite a history.


https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/shady-number