SURREY — A Surrey man wanted in the U.S. for money laundering told an undercover American police officer that some of the millions collected would be “wired to Afghanistan where it would potentially be used to fund terrorism,” a federal prosecutor told B.C. Supreme Court.
Glenn Sheck also boasted during a 2012 meeting attended by the officer that he was “the fourth-most-wanted gangster in Vancouver,” Crown lawyer Diba B. Majzub told associate chief justice Austin Cullen.
Sheck wants to be released on bail pending his full extradition hearing scheduled for January.
But Majzub told Cullen that Sheck should remain in custody because the U.S. case against him is “very strong.”
He said Sheck is alleged to have been involved in 23 transactions averaging $300,000 each between 2007 and 2011. One of his associates went to U.S. authorities and became a confidential witness against Sheck, Majzub said.
Sheck was involved in a scheme known as “double exchanges” where he would direct couriers across the U.S. to pick up money owed for B.C. pot and have it delivered to Los Angeles for cocaine purchases, Majzub said.
“The conduct here is very serious in that it involves international money laundering in the order of millions of dollars for the purpose of facilitating cross-border drug trafficking,” Majzub told Cullen.
“Mr. Sheck was no mere driver or courier — he was a directing mind of these operations, telling people as to when or where transactions would take place and the amount of money that would be involved.”
Sheck was charged in Surrey in November 2010 with possession of a loaded prohibited firearm after being arrested in a restaurant with a Glock pistol in his man purse. While out on bail in the Surrey case, he continued his U.S. money-laundering operation, Majzub said.
“There is powerful evidence that Mr. Sheck conducted more than $2 million worth of money- laundering transactions while on restrictive bail in the provincial court over a period of 18 months.”
Sheck was later convicted in the gun case and sentenced to 18 months after successfully fighting a mandatory three-year minimum sentence that was in place at the time.
His lawyer in the extradition case, Greg DelBigio, intends to argue in a hearing this fall that the U.S. acted illegally in the Sheck case by allowing a Homeland Security Investigations agent and the confidential witness to meet Sheck in B.C.
DelBigio told Cullen that none of the three meetings was recorded, calling into question what Sheck is alleged to have said. He will make his full submissions when the bail hearing resumes.
Majzub said that during the first B.C. meeting Sheck had with the witness and the U.S. agent in February 2012, he mentioned his status as a “wanted gangster.”
“And finally of significance, Mr. Sheck acknowledged his prior relationship with the confidential witness and the fact that they had previously moved $11 million in a three-month period and, at one point, $6 million in a one-week period.”
In another meeting a few days later, “Mr. Sheck talked about a friend who needed $800,000 moved to the Dominican Republic.”
“He expressed concern that the Dominican Republic was cracking down on money laundering. And he also explained that his friend wanted the money picked up in Toronto and then wired to Afghanistan, where it would potentially be used to fund terrorism,” Majzub said.
“So not only is Mr. Sheck directing large-scale money- laundering transactions, he is also involved by his own admission in the funding of international terrorism.”
Majzub said that Sheck also sent a text message to an associate who was arrested in the Dominican Republic suggesting they must have an informant in their midst and offering to have him “killed or handed over to you guys.”
