Behind Vancouver’s Housing Bubble: How Canadian Casinos Are Use To Launder Millions In Chinese Drug Money
Here is Postmedia’s real estate reporter Sam Cooper reporting on and explaining how British Columbia casinos are used to launder millions in drug cash.
* * *
On Oct. 15, 2015, a Mountie burst through the front door of an office in Richmond, carrying a battering ram and with a rifle slung on his back. The door swung shut behind him, locking him inside. He was in the lobby of Silver International Investment, a high-end money transfer business, surrounded by bulletproof glass. Behind a second glass door, a woman rushed to make a call while hiding several cellphones. Under her desk was a safe stuffed with bundles of cash. The Mountie, a large man, counted seconds anxiously, wondering if the woman would unlock the interior door.
It was one of 10 police raids in Richmond that day — part of a major investigation that has uncovered massive money laundering and underground banking networks with links to Mainland China, Macau and B.C. casinos, allege the RCMP’s federal organized crime unit and China’s national police service.
Postmedia has spent six months looking into the case, involving freedom of information requests for thousands of documents and dozens of interviews with government and law enforcement sources that were not authorized to be identified.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
