Chinese gangs are laundering drug money through Vancouver real estate

[Anonymous]

Average people on the West coast can't afford to own a home because of foreign criminals.

Criminal syndicates that control chemical factories in China's booming Guangdong province are shipping narcotics, including fentanyl, to Vancouver, washing the drug sales in British Columbia's casinos and high-priced real estate, and transferring laundered funds back to Chinese factories to repeat this deadly trade cycle, a Global News investigation shows.





The flow of narcotics and chemical precursors — and a rising death count in western Canada caused by synthetic opioids — is driven by sophisticated organized crime groups known as Triads.



The Triads have infiltrated Canada's economy so deeply that Australia's intelligence community has coined a new term for innovative methods of drug trafficking and money laundering now occurring in B.C.



It is called the "Vancouver Model" of transnational crime.



Details of the Vancouver Model are outlined in a November 2017 report obtained by Global News from B.C.'s provincial government, in a freedom of information request. The report, by John Langdale of the department of security studies and criminology at Macquarie University, was presented to Australian intelligence officers and Austrac, the country's anti-money laundering agency.

B.C. Attorney General David Eby has reviewed the report, and recently travelled to Ottawa to inform a federal committee of his concerns. His message was blunt. Eby testified that Canada's anti-money laundering system has completely failed. He told the committee that gangsters have been openly carrying hockey bags stuffed with hundreds of thousands in drug cash into B.C. casinos, and there has not been a single prosecution.



In an interview with Global, Eby said the Australian report shows "that Vancouver is now recognized internationally as a hub of transnational money laundering."



Langdale's report explains how Chinese criminals exploit "weak links" in global regulation. In one example, Triads deal with the state of North Korea, and Latin American drug cartels, to run a shadow economy based on the trading of narcotics, counterfeit goods, and illegal migrants.



Similarly, the regions of Vancouver, Hong Kong and Macau have formed a black market financed by intricate Chinese underground banking networks. According to the Vancouver Model report, the underground banks are at the heart of Chinese drug trafficking crime.



These secret banks have developed for centuries on China's southern coast, police intelligence reports say. They consist of family members spread across Chinese communities worldwide. They can move money, drugs and commodities around the world, without having to send funds across national borders. The banks maintain reserves of various currencies at locations worldwide, taking deposits in one area, and paying out withdrawals in another.



In order to function, the underground banks need Triad-friendly lawyers, bankers, casino operators, and gambling junket operators in Hong Kong, Macau and Vancouver, Langdale's report says.

[Anonymous]

Article continued.

These secret banks have developed for centuries on China's southern coast, police intelligence reports say. They consist of family members spread across Chinese communities worldwide. They can move money, drugs and commodities around the world, without having to send funds across national borders. The banks maintain reserves of various currencies at locations worldwide, taking deposits in one area, and paying out withdrawals in another.



In order to function, the underground banks need Triad-friendly lawyers, bankers, casino operators, and gambling junket operators in Hong Kong, Macau and Vancouver, Langdale's report says.



The junket operators are organized crime lenders. Traditionally, the junkets have laundered Asian heroin money and facilitated capital flight from China, by extending loans to Chinese high-rollers to purchase chips in Macau casinos.

The VIPs can cash out chips to buy global real estate. They pay back gambling loans in China, with small interest fees, allowing them to illicitly send legitimate wealth abroad, or launder ill-gotten gains. The junket lenders have migrated from Macau to Vancouver casinos, B.C. government documents show, bringing many VIP gamblers with them.



Langdale says that Australia's government is worried about Chinese capital flight, because Austrac can't differentiate between legitimate and criminal money pouring into Australian assets. His report outlines a worst case for Australia: "Possible scenario. Sydney as a regional hub for Chinese transnational crime (the Vancouver Model.)"



The model's criminal elements, according to the report, are:



"Traffic illegal drugs from Guangdong and Latin America"

"North American illegal drug dealing networks supplied by Chinese methamphetamines and precursor chemicals"

"Launder money into high-end real estate (funded by Chinese) capital flight, and launder money through the high-roller tables in casinos"

"High rollers used Canadian casinos, junket operations, and investment in Canadian real estate"

"Use banks, money transfer businesses to shift money to and from China and other countries (including) Mexico and Columbia."

The world's factory

Langdale's research focuses on the global supply of illegal drugs and crime from Guangdong, a province that faces the South China Sea, and borders China's special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau.



Guangdong is China's most populous province, with 100 million citizens, including about 30 million migrant workers, and the most billionaires in China. The province's economy is powered by the industrial Pearl River Delta region, which includes cities such as Zhuhai and Shenzhen. And with massive shipping infrastructure that connects with major international ports, Guangdong is known as the "world's factory," Langdale says.

[Anonymous]

There's a lot more, but we get the gist of it.

And Canada Border Services Agency documents say seizure amounts of fentanyl from China have surged since three years ago, with 7.2 kilograms seized in 2014, that rising sharply to 58 kilograms in 2015, and 20.5 kilograms seized in the fiscal year of 2016-2017.



n an interview, Clement said that the allegations laid out in Langdale's report — specifically, that Triads are producing deadly chemical narcotics in Chinese factories, shipping the drugs to B.C., and laundering proceeds of crime in Vancouver before returning funds to Chinese factory production — are completely accurate.

[Anonymous]

None of this surprises me IHJ..



Triads are woven into the fabric of Chinese society, especially in the South..



We have KMT legislators in Taiwan with organized crime links..



Chiang Kai Shek was a gangster at one time.

[Anonymous]

None of this surprises me IHJ..



Triads are woven into the fabric of Chinese society, especially in the South..



We have KMT legislators in Taiwan with organized crime links..



Chiang Kai Shek was a gangster at one time.

All Chinese owned properties in Vancouver purchased through the proceeds of illegal drugs should be immediately confiscated and sold below market value to families who can't afford to buy their own home. And use part of the money from home sales to deport everyone involved in selling gangsters houses.

[Berry Sweet]

None of this surprises me IHJ..



Triads are woven into the fabric of Chinese society, especially in the South..



We have KMT legislators in Taiwan with organized crime links..



Chiang Kai Shek was a gangster at one time.

All Chinese owned properties in Vancouver purchased through the proceeds of illegal drugs should be immediately confiscated and sold below market value to families who can't afford to buy their own home. And use part of the money from home sales to deport everyone involved in selling gangsters houses.

I support that ^^^

[Berry Sweet]

They've always known...why they never did anything is beyond me.  



But seriously...what "student who is unemployed purchases a 5 million dollar home?

[Anonymous]

They've always known...why they never did anything is beyond me.  



But seriously...what "student who is unemployed purchases a 5 million dollar home?

Has that happened Berry?

[realgrimm]

this has been going on a while.. a lot of LL take the cash grab, have that issue here too, abandoned buildings, whole floors of rental units..etc classified either vacant or held by a shell company then converted into a grow op or refinery..after they usually end up as crack houses  to cover their tracks and hide all suspicious or illegal activities blaming  the squatters

[Anonymous]

this has been going on a while.. a lot of LL take the cash grab, have that issue here too, abandoned buildings, whole floors of rental units..etc classified either vacant or held by a shell company then converted into a grow op or refinery..after they usually end up as crack houses  to cover their tracks and hide all suspicious or illegal activities blaming  the squatters

I doubt that is the case in Vancouver.

[Berry Sweet]

They've always known...why they never did anything is beyond me.  



But seriously...what "student who is unemployed purchases a 5 million dollar home?

Has that happened Berry?

Yes.  It doesn't make any sense.

[Anonymous]

They've always known...why they never did anything is beyond me.  



But seriously...what "student who is unemployed purchases a 5 million dollar home?

Has that happened Berry?

Yes.  It doesn't make any sense.

Rich Chinese spoil their kids rotten.

[Berry Sweet]

They've always known...why they never did anything is beyond me.  



But seriously...what "student who is unemployed purchases a 5 million dollar home?

Has that happened Berry?

Yes.  It doesn't make any sense.

Rich Chinese spoil their kids rotten.

That and laundered money.

[Anonymous]

They've always known...why they never did anything is beyond me.  



But seriously...what "student who is unemployed purchases a 5 million dollar home?

Has that happened Berry?

Yes.  It doesn't make any sense.

Rich Chinese spoil their kids rotten.

That and laundered money.

Most of the Chinese wealth in Vancouver is probably legit. But, those with money that aren't, hit them with a legal sledgehammer. It makes me sick that foreign drug money is part of the reason working people in Vancouver can't own homes.

[Anonymous]

None of this surprises me IHJ..



Triads are woven into the fabric of Chinese society, especially in the South..



We have KMT legislators in Taiwan with organized crime links..



Chiang Kai Shek was a gangster at one time.

All Chinese owned properties in Vancouver purchased through the proceeds of illegal drugs should be immediately confiscated and sold below market value to families who can't afford to buy their own home. And use part of the money from home sales to deport everyone involved in selling gangsters houses.

The Hells Angels launder money in the Vancouver real estate market too.