On December 1, 2018, Huawei's board deputy chair Meng Wanzhou was detained upon arrival at Vancouver International Airport by Canada Border Services Agency officers for questioning, which lasted three hours. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police subsequently arrested her on a provisional U.S. extradition request for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud in order to circumvent U.S. sanctions against Iran. On January 28, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice formally announced financial fraud charges against Meng. The first stage of the extradition hearing for Meng began Monday, January 20, 2020, and concluded on May 27, 2020, when the Supreme Court of British Columbia ordered the extradition to proceed.
During the extradition courtroom proceedings, Meng's lawyers made several allegations against the prosecution, including allegations of unlawful detention of Meng, unlawful search and seizure, extradition law violations, misrepresentation, international law violation, and fabricated testimonies by the CBSA, each of which were responded to by the prosecution. In August 2021, the extradition judge questioned the regularity of the case and expressed great difficulty in understanding how the Record of Case (ROC) presented by the US supported their allegation of criminality.
On 24 September 2021, the Department of Justice announced it had reached a deal with Meng to resolve the case through a deferred prosecution agreement. As part of the deal, Meng agreed to a statement of facts that said she had made untrue statements to HSBC to enable transactions in the U.S., at least some of which supported Huawei's work in Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions, but did not have to pay a fine nor plead guilty to her key charges. The Department of Justice said it would move to dismiss all charges against Meng when the deferral period ends on 21 December 2022, on the condition that Meng is not charged with a crime before then. Meng left Canada for China on 24 September 2021; hours after news of the deal, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, two Canadians whose detention were widely seen as retaliation for Meng's arrest, were released from detention in China and flown back to Canada. On December 2, 2022, the presiding judge dismissed the charges against Meng following the United States government's request.
Detention
Arrest and allegations
On December 1, 2018, while transferring planes at Vancouver International Airport en route to Mexico from Hong Kong, Meng was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) at the request of the United States, pursuant to the extradition treaty between Canada and the United States. On December 7, it was revealed that an arrest warrant had been issued on August 22, 2018, by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. According to Crown counsel in Canadian court, Meng was "charged with conspiracy to defraud multiple international institutions." The warrant was based on allegations that Wanzhou had cleared money that was claimed to be for Huawei, but was actually for Skycom, an entity claimed to be entirely controlled by Huawei, which was said to be dealing with Iran, contrary to sanctions. According to the defence lawyer, the bank involved in the dealings was HSBC. The allegations were rejected by Meng's defence lawyer, who claimed she did not break any U.S. or Canadian laws and that the US had deliberately omitted key information on two PowerPoint slides that had showed that Meng was upfront to HSBC about the true nature of Skycom/Huawei relationship. The Crown counsel said that the case against Meng stemmed from a 2013 Reuters report about the company's close ties to Hong Kong-based Skycom Tech, which attempted to sell U.S. equipment to Iran, despite U.S. and European Union bans.
Bail
From December 7 to 11, Meng attended a bail hearing in Vancouver. She was released on a $10 million bail that was granted with conditions, including electronic surveillance. She was required to hand over her passports, of which seven were listed in her court records. Of the seven, 4 were from China, and 3 were from Hong Kong. A further Chinese passport whose serial number begins with "P" was not listed but was later discovered; these passports are normally issued to employees of the Chinese government for travel related to public affairs. The Hong Kong government stated that "Any holder, therefore, shall be not in possession of more than one valid HKSAR passport at any time."