British Columbia’s Cullen Commission into money laundering has heard details of an elite criminal network that employs a variety of typologies to launder criminal proceeds.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) chief superintendent, Rob Gilchrist, told the commission of an “elite network operating out of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and British Columbia that represents several service providers, nationally and internationally, that conduct self-laundering and third-party money laundering.”

Career criminals

Gilchrist said the group involves highly experienced career criminals that use trade-based money laundering (TBML), shell companies, nominees, casinos, underground banks and real estate and to wash money for many different criminal organisations.

The chief superintendent also told the commission that the group is probably laundering hundreds of millions of Canadian dollars or more each year, but he could not specify an exact amount.

TBML precedent

A previous RCMP investigation into an international loan-sharking network centred on British Columbia casino money laundering, drug trafficking and underground banks linked to mainland China also revealed TBML.

In that investigation an underground bank used fake invoices from Chinese companies to cover wire transfers to banks in Mexico or Peru.

This enabled drug traffickers to ship cocaine into Canada using wire transfers from banks without having to travel to Latin America.

Categories: Trade Based Financial crimes News