VANCOUVER — A former Metro Vancouver realtor who leased luxury properties to B.C. gangsters has pleaded guilty in the U.S. to five counts of money laundering.
Omid Mashinchi, 35, signed the plea deal with the U.S. Attorney on June 28, but it was only entered before U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston on July 27. He will be sentenced in November.
The Vancouver man admitted that he wired hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug money over several months last year to banks in Massachusetts through one of his company’s accounts.
The maximum sentence he faces is 20 years, but the plea agreement said the assistant U.S. attorney on the case “agrees to recommend” a term at the lower end of the range. No number is stated. Mashinchi could also be fined up to $500,000 US.
If Mashinchi applies to serve his sentence in Canada, “the U.S. attorney agrees not to oppose defendant’s transfer application,” the plea agreement said.
Mashinchi declared in the written document that he discussed the terms of the deal with his lawyer before signing it.
“I entered into this plea agreement freely, voluntarily and knowingly because I am guilty of the offences to which I am pleading guilty and I believe this plea agreement is in my best interests,” the document said.
Mashinchi was linked to the Wolf Pack gang coalition and leased a number of high-end condos to gang members.
One of the those condos, a penthouse in North Vancouver, was leased to Brothers Keepers boss Gavinder Grewal, who was murdered in the suite at 1550 Fern St. in December.
Postmedia News has learned that Grewal’s killers drilled a small hole in a fire door, then threaded something through the hole that allowed them to push on the bar. They then had access to a stairwell up to the penthouse floor that had no security cameras.
No one has been arrested in the murder, but in June, the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team released images of suspects from surveillance videos near the apartment building.
IHIT Cpl. Frank Jang said Tuesday that “it remains an active and ongoing investigation and IHIT would like to speak with anyone with information on Gavinder Grewal’s murder.”
The sealed indictment filed against Mashinchi in January 2018 says that he knew the funds he was wiring to the U.S. “represented the proceeds of crime” and “that such transportation, transmission and transfer was designed in whole or in part to conceal and disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership and the control of the proceeds of specified unlawful activity.”
The underlying crime alleged is “the manufacture, importation, sale and distribution of a controlled substance.”
Mashinchi was arrested in April as he landed at Sea-Tac International Airport on a flight from Vancouver. He was going to visit his parents in Sacramento.
A Postmedia investigation revealed in June that Mashinchi had started at least three companies in B.C. since 2006, all related to the real estate industry. While operating the companies, Mashinchi regularly associated with B.C. gangsters, including leasing them condos that were used both as stash houses and as residences.
One of his companies, called Mashinchi Investments, and also known as the Residence Club, leased the condo where Grewal was murdered on Dec. 22, 2017.
Mashinchi also leased out a West Vancouver house that was targeted in an unsolved drive-by shooting on Oct. 8, 2017.
Vancouver police Supt. Mike Porteous said earlier that Mashinchi is well-known to B.C. law enforcement agencies.
“Many of these properties have been tied to criminal activity such as drug dealing and violent events including murder and drive-by shootings, which are gang-related,” he said.
