Duffel bags of dirty cash were rolling into B.C. for years, while the federal government kept the province in the dark about the extent of the problem.
After the NDP took power in 2017, Attorney General David Eby said the previous B.C. Liberal government had turned a blind eye to money-laundering that could amount to $200 million a year. It now appears that the amounts are more like $1 billion.
Eby was understandably shocked to discover the RCMP and the federal government had information on the much larger problem that wasn’t shared with the province.
An international report surfaced that pegged money-laundering in the province at $1 billion a year, while an RCMP report estimated that the proceeds of crime bought $1 billion worth of property in Vancouver.
Former RCMP officer Peter German has completed one report on money-laundering and is working on a second. His evaluation of the problem was already alarming. The fact that the police and the feds were sitting on more explosive data makes one wonder if everybody is on the same team.
Eby should not have had to discover this information second-hand. The police and his federal counterparts should have been keeping the province up to speed.
B.C. has become a haven for money-laundering, and it won’t stop unless the good guys start working together.
