Attorney General David Eby is an acknowledged master at playing the political angles, so there’s a certain amount of top spin on the latest development on the money-laundering scene.
Eby doled out a single chapter from the ongoing work by proceeds-of-crime expert Peter German on Monday. He released it because he thought it was so startling and disturbing and urgent. Also because it stands alone as a made-to-order briefing note to back B.C.’s push for more federal crime-fighting money.
It’s definitely disturbing. But German’s chapter is not startling or particularly urgent. It describes a laughably under-resourced RCMP money-laundering section that has been an inside joke for a long time.
The B.C. legislature was debating that issue a year ago and longer, although in more general terms. Under-staffed RCMP offices are a fact of life throughout B.C. and have been for a while.
The specific issue Eby is pulling the fire alarm over is the staffing of the Mounties’ anti-money-laundering section in B.C. It’s a bit thin. In fact, Eby and German are trying to make the point it’s non-existent.
German has concluded: “There are no RCMP members from its federal business line who are currently dedicated to criminal money-laundering investigations.
When he started gathering information, he asked the RCMP how many positions in B.C. are dedicated to money laundering.
The answer was: 25.
How many are currently staffed, he asked.
The answer was: 11.
At a face-to-face meeting, the RCMP confessed only five of those 11 were working as investigators. The other six were off work or on courses.
And the five real officers from the 25-member paper complement spend most of their time referring files to the provincial civil-forfeiture office. That’s a handy way of seizing proceeds of crime without having to make criminal cases. But it hardly constitutes a serious federal assault on organized crime’s money-laundering efforts.
It isn’t the whole story, though. The above refers to federally funded RCMP officers working in B.C. There are provincially funded Mounties, as well. They have a more respectable presence, with more than a dozen officers on a joint team, concentrating on dirty money in casinos.
German said their results have been “fairly dismal” as far as charges go, although some might be in progress.
The short form of the story is that while there are RCMP members working the casino aspects of money laundering, there are zero Mounties currently on the broader issue of money laundering in general. The wider view would bring the B.C. real estate market and the drug trade into the picture.
The original complement dribbled away and were reassigned to more urgent priorities just as Vancouver was becoming a global model for how to convert criminal profits into untraceable clean money.
The chapter is being released just after the federal Liberals have budgeted a police hike to address the problem (belatedly, as always).
German’s previous work dissected the lax provincial oversight of casinos going back years. But even he had to acknowledge the flow of dirty money had eased dramatically in recent years, at least through casinos.
The other potential avenues are still under investigation, by German and other reviews the government has commissioned.
German’s full report has been submitted to cabinet and is currently being reviewed before release. Eby will either release it in its entirety or piecemeal, depending on what’s the best way to maximize the impact.
The striking thing from Monday’s release is how deep you have to look to find the truth about investigatory horsepower. The B.C. Liberal government reassured people for years that everything was fine and the authorities were on top of things, when in fact money laundering was rampant.
German quoted former proceeds-of-crime specialist Gary Clement, who said: “On paper, Canada has built a Rolls-Royce when it comes to fighting money laundering, but we forgot to put in the engine — an effective law-enforcement capacity that can take on these complicated cases.”
