Too many Chinese have had the experience of finding a money changer in Richmond or Burnaby. Some are thousands of dollars, some are hundreds of thousands of dollars, some are hundreds of thousands of dollars, different amounts have different commissions, and it all seems to be legal in Canada.
But!
A real case just happened reminds us that even if you have successfully transferred money from China to Canada through a Canadian money changer, or even bought a house or property, someday later, the house you and your family are sleeping in may become confiscated stolen money.
Recently, the B.C. Superior Court concluded a “Chinese money laundering case” in which all of Mr. C’s claims were dismissed and the previous court decision was upheld, resulting in the confiscation of two properties valued at nearly $3 million and $67,000 in cash.
This all started with the 2015 Silver International money laundering case that became a sensation in Greater Vancouver.
In July 2015, the RCMP received information through an informant that Silver International, based in Richmond, B.C., was operating a money laundering business under the guise of legitimacy.
After getting more clues, the police organized an “E-Pirate” operation on Oct. 15, 2015, and seized 132 computers and cell phones and 30 terabytes of electronic data after an electrifying operation.
In the collation of evidence found that
1, Richmond’s River Rock Casino, which accepted approximately $13.5 million in cash, all in $20 bills, in one month, was directly linked to the money changer.
2, 40 organizations dealing in cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine associated with Asian gangs were customers of the money changer
Police noted in the announcement at the time that from the Canadian end, every C$100,000 in cash that entered Yintong International minutes later became the equivalent of C$95,000 in a bank account in China. And the missing C$5,000 was the money changer’s commission.
Conversely, if a Chinese client needs to gamble at River Rock Casino, they can simply deposit the equivalent of C$100,000 in a Chinese account and then get $95,000 in cash to become a casino booster.
Yin Tong International Investment Company is involved in making as much as $1.5 million a day, and spreads the funds into about 600 Chinese bank accounts. It also used cash from Vancouver drug dealers and money from casino loan sharks to finance large amounts of gaming at BC casinos for Chinese-American magnates.
The materials filed in the lawsuit show that Yin Tong International remitted more than $300 million from Canada and more than $220 million from overseas to Canada in just one year.
Based on a turnover of 520 million, the commission was as high as 26 million Canadian dollars.
At the time, the RCMP was very excited that this big fish caught in the net would change the status quo of the money laundering market in BC.
But soon the plot took a divine turn.
In November 2018, due to a prosecutor’s error, a misstep in presenting evidence for cross-examination by defence counsel exposed the identity of the undercover informant, and the anti-money laundering lawsuit involving $500 million was enough to put the informant’s life at risk.
Canadian legal procedures require the prosecutor and the RCMP to put the life of the informant first.
According to Global News, the Canadian federal government prosecution decided to drop the lawsuit before the trial could begin.
This allowed Silverton International and two of its beneficial owners to be exonerated.
Although there are still civil lawsuits such as forfeiture of some property, they are no longer relevant.
Mr. C was one of the clients in the Silverton International case.
According to the RCMP’s investigation, Mr. C transferred more than $5 million worth of domestic assets to B.C. in 2015 for the purchase of real estate and living expenses.
Since he was a client of Silverton International, the police naturally believed that Mr. C transferred the black money. The RCMP, in conjunction with the B.C. Civil Property Forfeiture Agency, raided two properties in Richmond and confiscated $67,000 in cash, while forfeiting two properties totaling nearly $3 million.
The police investigation also revealed that Mr. C’s salary income for the last ten years from 2006 to 2015 did not match the value of the properties in his name. In other words, Mr. C could not explain the legitimate source of the funds. Subsequently, evidence that Mr. C had forged work certificates to perjure himself for the loan also surfaced.
The police eventually determined that Mr. C and his family were involved in drug money laundering transactions in Metro Vancouver. However, after his property was confiscated in 2015, Mr. C insisted that he only wired his domestic money to Canada through money changers and was not involved in drug money laundering transactions. And the nature of the two and the outcome of the penalty were very different.
Mr. C persisted in his appeal from 2015 to the present, until the B.C. Superior Court recently dismissed Mr. C’s entire lawsuit.
Some legal professionals pointed out that Mr. C might be just an ordinary customer who circumvented the domestic foreign exchange regulation with the help of the money changer channel, but he was unfortunate to step on Yin Tong International. The reason is that the transfer Mr. C described was not really a transfer, but rather a transfer of his RMB in China to a designated account in China, while the money changer paid Mr. C cash directly.
This kind of two-sided counterfeiting is the most common trading practice of “underground money changers” as defined in China, but such transactions are not protected by law in any country.
So Mr. C’s appeal is unlikely to succeed, and the facts themselves cannot be reversed unless loopholes in the law enforcement process are found.
Huang Sanshui said, a few thousand Canadian dollars in cash to the money changers, almost instantly Alipay prompted the corresponding yuan to the account, which is essentially the same as Mr. C’s operation, but the Canadian police are more capable can not investigate every transaction, because the cost accounting are not worth.
So small amounts of money remitted to and from money changers is even a grey area, the people do not raise the official not to investigate, but if it is a large amount of money to understand one thing, whether in China or Canada this is illegal, the worst result is to be confiscated.
So the Chinese in Greater Vancouver still need to keep in mind the risks, do not participate in the illegal and disorderly things.
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