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Most of the problems stemmed from a lack of experience on a criminal case of that magnitude, the sources said.

In the end, it was senior federal Crown prosecutors who made the decision to pull the plug. RCMP executive officers in B.C. agreed with the call.

No one from the RCMP or the prosecution service would comment for this story on their internal reviews of the flawed file.

But Postmedia has spent months talking to a variety of sources familiar with the case known as E-Pirate.

B.C. Attorney General David Eby said Thursday that he is still waiting for all the answers about the stay in the unprecedented case. Since E-Pirate was in the hands of federal prosecutors, “I don’t get the same level of information that I would get if it had been a provincial prosecution,” he said.

Photo by Gerry Kahrmann / PNG

“It is a challenging situation for a provincial attorney general on a federal case like this that is so high-profile and so important to the province.”

When Postmedia revealed that the charges against Qin, Zhu and their allegedly illegal bank were quietly stayed last November, former investigators who worked tirelessly on the file were stunned.

“I was shocked because it was a good case. It was an exceptionally good case,” retired Insp. Bruce Ward said Thursday.

“I was very disappointed in that we — the RCMP — would walk away from all that effort without an attempt to fight — fight for the people of B.C. It is not about me and this project — look at the public reaction when that file collapsed.”