Money Laundering in BC

[badbadboy]

How is it that over a short period of time in office, the NDP have uncovered numerous instances of money laundering by International Drug Cartels? Were the Liberals ignorant or just turned a blind eye to the problem?

Real Estate - $5B in Vancouver since 2012. No wonder we experienced a huge boom in property values during that time period.

Who is monitoring who the buyers are and where the money comes from? I know personally that banks contact you with these questions if you have funds wire transferred from countries that have significant organized crime problems.

Who monitors real estate agents who are complicit with the organized crime and are writing up purchases by a single person worth many millions of dollars?

Luxury car market - millions of dollars of vehicles purchased and put in containers destined for Asia. They are paying cash; how is it the banks aren't asking questions?

Hockey Bags full of cash used to buy chips at Casinos all caught on video surveillance. Why weren't the Police called to investigate the moment this happened?

I'm getting the impression all of the gate keepers are either told to ignore it, are getting a cash package to keep quiet or the people at the top were also on the take. This is total BS and there needs to be a reckoning of all the people at the top who have enabled this stuff.

https://vancouversun.com/business/real-estate/money-laundering-hikes-b-c-real-estate-prices-report

 

[westwoody]

My brother had a Chinese couple come to his door and ask to buy his house for cash. He said he'd think about it, they politely said they'd come back sometime.
A few days later they came back with one of those gym bags of cash.
Frankly he was a bit scared. Were they gangsters who wanted his house?

The thing with this cash is everyone who gets it is benefitting personally.
The casino director is having his revenue go through the roof.
The car dealer is selling many more cars and isn't wasting time and money on financing.
Real estate agents are getting commisions for much less time and effort than usually goes into selling a house.
It's easy for us to say we would do the right thing but it would be very tempting.

 

[PatB5678]

it was $5.3 billion laundered in just 2018!!! in just one yr!

 

[Shanghai]

Gee, and here I thought the black market human trafficking of girls by Chinese gangs that don’t pay taxes was the current scourge of the month the NDP would be saving us from.

My take on this this story is that it is just the NDP trying to stay relevant in the eyes of voters. Money laundering means more incoming cash and taxes, so of COURSE no one “noticed” this “problem” for decades (except for the sharp-eyed NDP, who, Thank God, will save us from this newly discovered blight on B.C’s pristine image).

BC is the only NDP Province left in Canada; Trudeau just finished sinking the Liberal ship, and the rest of Canada is PC Blue, so the NDP constantly hitting the news with these little saving the world stories is just standard PR101 for a marginalized political party that is just hanging on by their fingernails.

Next, we will need to be saved from unscrupulous websites shamelessly trafficking these poor marginalized girls who are being forced to sell their bodies by the stereotypical Chinese gangs and black dudes with big dicks. Evil Craigslist and Backpage gone, check. NDP needs to save all those girls but shutting down those evil profiteers.

 

[Cock Throppled]

Gee, and here I thought the black market human trafficking of girls by Chinese gangs that don’t pay taxes was the current scourge of the month the NDP would be saving us from.

My take on this this story is that it is just the NDP trying to stay relevant in the eyes of voters. Money laundering means more incoming cash and taxes, so of COURSE no one “noticed” this “problem” for decades (except for the sharp-eyed NDP, who, Thank God, will save us from this newly discovered blight on B.C’s pristine image).

BC is the only NDP Province left in Canada; Trudeau just finished sinking the Liberal ship, and the rest of Canada is PC Blue, so the NDP constantly hitting the news with these little saving the world stories is just standard PR101 for a marginalized political party that is just hanging on by their fingernails.

Next, we will need to be saved from unscrupulous websites shamelessly trafficking these poor marginalized girls who are being forced to sell their bodies by the stereotypical Chinese gangs and black dudes with big dicks. Evil Craigslist and Backpage gone, check. NDP needs to save all those girls but shutting down those evil profiteers.

FFS, you do know the only one laundering those mounts of money are actual criminals, don't you?

To say this is a political ploy for the NDP to stay relevant is either willful blindness of the scale we've already seen from politicians and regulators, or you're interested in keeping the taps on for whatever reason. The fact the federal politicans and regulators seem uninterested is more the shame on them.

I think every politician we elect, and the bureaucrats we employ, who closed their eyes to such overwhelming scales of abuse deserves the most contempt that can be heaped on them, because that is exactly what they think of us by allowing communities to be disrupted, having costs of living increase, make housing unaffordable, etc.

 

[masterblaster]

I’d be interested in finding out some laundering methods.

 

[appleomac]

FFS, you do know the only one laundering those mounts of money are actual criminals, don't you?

To say this is a political ploy for the NDP to stay relevant is either willful blindness of the scale we've already seen from politicians and regulators, or you're interested in keeping the taps on for whatever reason. The fact the federal politicans and regulators seem uninterested is more the shame on them.

I think every politician we elect, and the bureaucrats we employ, who closed their eyes to such overwhelming scales of abuse deserves the most contempt that can be heaped on them, because that is exactly what they think of us by allowing communities to be disrupted, having costs of living increase, make housing unaffordable, etc.

Everyone closed their eyes. Do you think homeowners care why the house they bought 10, 15, 20 years ago care why they are now worth millions (at least on paper)? "Real estate" is one of the biggest industry sector in BC right now: do you think all the construction, development companies and their employees care why "real estate" has been booming for the past decades? Do you think all the city councils care that some "student" buys 12 condos at a time, as long as the property tax bill is paid? The "indignation" has only surfaced in the last what, 6 or 8 years - politicians talking about Vancouver housing affordability is a relatively recent phenomenon. Do criminals with money to launder benefit, sure: but so have many other non-criminals benefited greatly, if you've been a homeowner for the last 5, 10, 20 years, you've also benefited. Many who now display "indignation" over money laundering can't admit to themselves that they too have benefited.

 

[kodiak_bear3]

I wonder how money laundering on real estate can happen... do they really buy real estate with cash?

 

[nightswhisper]

I wonder how money laundering on real estate can happen... do they really buy real estate with cash?

Yes. absolutely

 

[westwoody]

do they really buy real estate with cash?

Read my post, they definitely do.

 

[westwoody]

allowing communities to be disrupted, having costs of living increase, make housing unaffordable, etc.

So true. Many young people will never be able to buy a house in their hometown because of the distorted markets.

So what if you get a million for your house? You still need a place to live, and maybe you want to live near your kids/grandkids. Whatever premium you make on the inflated sale price goes towards the inflated price of your new place.

 

[badbadboy]

Gee, and here I thought the black market human trafficking of girls by Chinese gangs that don’t pay taxes was the current scourge of the month the NDP would be saving us from.

My take on this this story is that it is just the NDP trying to stay relevant in the eyes of voters. Money laundering means more incoming cash and taxes, so of COURSE no one “noticed” this “problem” for decades (except for the sharp-eyed NDP, who, Thank God, will save us from this newly discovered blight on B.C’s pristine image).

BC is the only NDP Province left in Canada; Trudeau just finished sinking the Liberal ship, and the rest of Canada is PC Blue, so the NDP constantly hitting the news with these little saving the world stories is just standard PR101 for a marginalized political party that is just hanging on by their fingernails.

Next, we will need to be saved from unscrupulous websites shamelessly trafficking these poor marginalized girls who are being forced to sell their bodies by the stereotypical Chinese gangs and black dudes with big dicks. Evil Craigslist and Backpage gone, check. NDP needs to save all those girls but shutting down those evil profiteers.

It was brought to the attention of the BC Liberals as far back as 2004. There were many reports from BC Lotto employees which were buried and in a few cases, these employees were terminated.

It's not a political problem but it appears you believe it to be an NDP thing.

Read this timeline:

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-government-to-release-casino-money-laundering-report

I wonder how money laundering on real estate can happen... do they really buy real estate with cash?

My take is the money is laundered through Casinos and then deposited as clean money in the banks. The sources could be drug cartels primarily in China but from what I've been reading it's an international problem.

 

[licks2nite]

The law surrounding money laundering is flawed. Suddenly like magic it seems that once laundered, the money is no longer a proceed of crime and should be.

 

[appleomac]

The law surrounding money laundering is flawed. Suddenly like magic it seems that once laundered, the money is no longer a proceed of crime and should be.

If a criminal gets to the point where the criminal has boat loads of money to launder, that basically means law enforcement did not or could not stop the crime to begin with. Hard to make a case for "proceeds of crime" when law enforcement can't even make a case for the crime that created the proceeds.

 

[PoorGuy]

PERB veterans will recall the great Asian boss Maggie and her stable of women like Queenie who works in pairs, threes and fours in old tear down houses in East Vancouver in the late 2000's to 2012. One house after another after the old one is sold, torn down, and another built. 100% part of the laundering operation of real estate, prostitution, casino, and luxury purchases to be flipped and sold back to China. All those $120 45 minute deals and rivers of sperm harvested 10 times a day per lady.

You now wonder why all Asian SP's in the past six years work only in condos and apartments...

 

[licks2nite]

If a criminal gets to the point where the criminal has boat loads of money to launder, that basically means law enforcement did not or could not stop the crime to begin with. Hard to make a case for "proceeds of crime" when law enforcement can't even make a case for the crime that created the proceeds.

But there's still a narrative about how the cash moves long after laundering.

 

[appleomac]

But there's still a narrative about how the cash moves long after laundering.

Yes, but that's still an exercise in trying to connect cash to a crime. Tracing cash back to a crime is extremely difficult to do - probably even harder than trying to stop the initial crime to begin with. Once cash has been layered several times and washed, it's an exceedingly hard uphill fight to trace the chain of cash back to the crime.

 

[carvesg]

I would be interested to hear from Bob Rennie what was the pourcentage of his sales done in cash and what or how he kept that from his friend Christy Clark

 

[rlock]

I would be interested to hear from Bob Rennie what was the pourcentage of his sales done in cash and what or how he kept that from his friend Christy Clark

LOL, kept from her? The BC Liberals under Clark (and now Wilkinson) became the party of money laundering; they never saw anything wrong with what was going on until long after the public did. Deep in their hearts, they still want to pretend it is not happening. Witness how much crying their members still do on behalf of the real estate industry, even after it has become clear that the industry is top-to-bottom corrupt.

Half of Metro Vancouver torn down for condo projects in a city where almost nobody earns the kind of income necessary to afford living in it: did anybody think this was in any way economically sustainable; did anyone think the money was actually coming from the legitimate BC economy?

Decisions were made to sacrifice BC and its citizens on the altar of out of province and out of country interests. They knew - they all knew. Take a look at the number of dodgy projects they approved, and you can see the basis of it all was corruption. Scratch the surface of any of them, and the public face of it was always some sort of fakery.


I said for many years already that the only way to get anywhere in BC was to be some petroleum or mining baron, a gangster, or one of the real estate agents, developers, and shady tax lawyers who service them. Or one of the shady politicians who take money from them in order to have a political career.

Until the recent restrictions came in on shady donations, pols were being openly bribed in the form of political contributions, and paid their corporate mentors back in the form of lax laws & tax loopholes, and non-existent police enforcement. Did you notice how many municipal politicians suddenly retired before the last election? If they couldn't take dirty money from developers, they basically had no career. That tells you they were just proxies & shills all along, put there by someone else to pave the way for this corruption.

You cannot ever expect people who declare that greed is a virtue to ever really stop crime. Sure, they sometimes turn loose the cops on street disorder (to defend property), and throw a bone to the moral puritans - but the real crimes always take place at the top and these are the people who make a career out of enabling it.

As the old saying goes, whenever you hear the word "law & order", ask yourself whose law and whose order. The answer tells you how serious they are about actually stopping crime.

 

[appleomac]

I would be interested to hear from Bob Rennie what was the pourcentage of his sales done in cash and what or how he kept that from his friend Christy Clark

If you think about it; all real estate transactions are eventually settled in cash. Whether it's cash from a buyers bank account, cash from proceeds of a mortgage or cash from ill gotten methods. How is a real estate agent supposed to know what cash is legitimate or not? Money laundering takes many forms, and yes, money laundering can and does involve what appears to be legitimate mechanisms - that includes use of mortgages. Contrary to popular belief, money laundering in real estate is much more sophisticated than buying a condo or house with a hockey bag full of cash.