Money Laundering: "The Vancouver Model"

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Cypherus

Foreign ownership? You're buying into false mainstream media narrative. No, it's always been permanent residents who use "foreign capital" to buy up real estate. This means that, for example, a Chinese student attending UBC (and featured on Global News), can buy a $20 million plus property near Jericho Beach with CIBC lending a 7 million mortgage to cover the shortfall. He is a permanent resident, but the money comes from his corporate executive parents in China. No, foreign ownership of the house is never registered, but in the name of, for example, Mr. Ling instead - 21 year old student of UCB wanting to become dentist. The money comes from overseas registered in the name of a Permanent resident in Canada. It protects the family wealth from Communist China authorities at the cost of affordability of Canadian residents, while saving on foreign buyers tax too. The condo and housing market of Vancouver can forever go up based on this reality. It has been since 1991. Get it?

Well, sort of. As per the BC Government's official records there is still hundreds of millions of dollars of RE being purchased by "foreigners". Even after the 15% tax.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Cypherus

Foreign ownership? You're buying into false mainstream media narrative. No, it's always been permanent residents who use "foreign capital" to buy up real estate. This means that, for example, a Chinese student attending UBC (and featured on Global News), can buy a $20 million plus property near Jericho Beach with CIBC lending a 7 million mortgage to cover the shortfall. He is a permanent resident, but the money comes from his corporate executive parents in China. No, foreign ownership of the house is never registered, but in the name of, for example, Mr. Ling instead - 21 year old student of UCB wanting to become dentist. The money comes from overseas registered in the name of a Permanent resident in Canada. It protects the family wealth from Communist China authorities at the cost of affordability of Canadian residents, while saving on foreign buyers tax too. The condo and housing market of Vancouver can forever go up based on this reality. It has been since 1991. Get it?

The UBC student has to live somewhere. Why not a $20 M house if his parents can afford it.

In Saskatoon (a university town), it was not uncommon to have townhouses owned by the parents of university students (or the student him/herself). The parents look at how much they or their kids would spend on rent to go university for 4-5 years and decide to do 20% down and pay a mortgage instead.

How is that different or bad?

If I had kids would I spoil them with a $20M home. Probably not, but others have different values.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by casper

The UBC student has to live somewhere. Why not a $20 M house if his parents can afford it.

In Saskatoon (a university town), it was not uncommon to have townhouses owned by the parents of university students (or the student him/herself). The parents look at how much they or their kids would spend on rent to go university for 4-5 years and decide to do 20% down and pay a mortgage instead.

How is that different or bad?

If I had kids would I spoil them with a $20M home. Probably not, but others have different values.

I agree to a point - its the same reason many Canadians own properties in Florida, or Arizona.

Which is why its easy to say this is a failure in zoning and leadership.

The city should have been made much, much more dense with additional options for housing the local population.

The issue is that supply WAS the issue, a decade ago when it made sense to use land for lower density solutions - row homes, town homes etc.

The issue with supply NOW is that it nearly always has to be high rise to make a decent business case taking land costs and building costs into consideration.

This guarantees there will never be "affordability" again when 2 of the largest hard costs are already at $1000 sq/ft in parts of Van - forget profit, etc.

These types of costs guarantee that family sized units are forever going to be at or over a million dollars. Absurd.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Cypherus

Foreign ownership? You're buying into false mainstream media narrative. No, it's always been permanent residents who use "foreign capital" to buy up real estate. This means that, for example, a Chinese student attending UBC (and featured on Global News), can buy a $20 million plus property near Jericho Beach with CIBC lending a 7 million mortgage to cover the shortfall. He is a permanent resident, but the money comes from his corporate executive parents in China. No, foreign ownership of the house is never registered, but in the name of, for example, Mr. Ling instead - 21 year old student of UCB wanting to become dentist. The money comes from overseas registered in the name of a Permanent resident in Canada. It protects the family wealth from Communist China authorities at the cost of affordability of Canadian residents, while saving on foreign buyers tax too. The condo and housing market of Vancouver can forever go up based on this reality. It has been since 1991. Get it?

I think this happened since the 1700s, with the wealth of the old world, namely France and England, financing the "properties of the colonies", driving up land price up so much when they used to be free for the aboriginals. Sounds familiar?

This trend merely continues when wealth shifts from one part of the world to the other. Now you guys finally realized how the native people felt back then huh? Well, at least you are not thrown into resident schools, and better still, get to make a profit from this new wealth coming in.

[retro_orange]

Originally Posted by Vin

I think this happened since the 1700s, with the wealth of the old world, namely France and England, financing the "properties of the colonies", driving up land price up so much when they used to be free for the aboriginals. Sounds familiar?

This trend merely continues when wealth shifts from one part of the world to the other. Now you guys finally realized how the native people felt back then huh? Well, at least you are not thrown into resident schools, and better still, get to make a profit from this new wealth coming in.

What an idiot.

Very few people have benefited, far more have been shut out. Inequality has been steadily rising in this country, in tandem with increasing amounts of foreign capital coming into Canada in the past 10-15 years.

Repeating ignorance of the past is just stupid. Canadians of Chinese descent whose families came here as recently as the 70's and 80's have been shut out and are outraged just the same as who you assume are dumb white people making these comments on here.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by Vin

I think this happened since the 1700s, with the wealth of the old world, namely France and England, financing the "properties of the colonies", driving up land price up so much when they used to be free for the aboriginals. Sounds familiar?

This trend merely continues when wealth shifts from one part of the world to the other. Now you guys finally realized how the native people felt back then huh? Well, at least you are not thrown into resident schools, and better still, get to make a profit from this new wealth coming in.

I hope you realize the absurdity of this logic.

Having the benefit of history only makes the current errors all the more damaging.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by retro_orange

What an idiot.

Very few people have benefited, far more have been shut out. Inequality has been steadily rising in this country, in tandem with increasing amounts of foreign capital coming into Canada in the past 10-15 years.

Repeating ignorance of the past is just stupid. Canadians of Chinese descent whose families came here as recently as the 70's and 80's have been shut out and are outraged just the same as who you assume are dumb white people making these comments on here.

Touched a nerve there, haven't I?

You have to look into who gets to gain in the first place. They are the ones in power. So what changed? Call me an idiot all you want, it just doesn't change the fact. And did I say I agree with this system? I was merely correcting the previous posting that such a trend only started from the 80s or 90s.

Originally Posted by rofina

I hope you realize the absurdity of this logic.

Having the benefit of history only makes the current errors all the more damaging.

Yup, absurd unless you stand to gain lots.

[whatnext]

From Friday's Vancouver Sun, the massive investigation into money laundering and real estate now includes links to fentanyl and the gun violence. One has to wonder if anything good has come from this massive inflow of capital!

In December 2015, a new leg of the RCMP’s E-Pirate money-laundering investigation delved into Metro Vancouver’s underworld of fentanyl labs, gun sales and violent dial-a-dope gangs.

It started with undercover officers tracking the movements of a Burnaby man named Ge ‘Gary’ Wang.

The offshoot investigation, code-named Prophet, grew from extensive surveillance of the many alleged employees of E-Pirate’s primary target, Paul King Pao Jin. In E-Pirate, the RCMP and B.C. government documents allege a network of organized criminals established a massive underground banking channel between Richmond and Mainland China, using VIP gamblers from Macau to buy chips, mostly at River Rock Casino, in order to launder hundreds of millions in drug cash. The operation allowed ultra-wealthy Chinese businessmen, some allegedly with ties to organized crime, to move money from China to Canada while evading China’s tight capital export controls...

...In January 2017, according to legal filings, police learned that within a six-week period Wang had acquired 18 restricted firearms from West Coast Hunting Supplies in Richmond. Corporate records show that Hai Peng Yang is the gun shop’s director. The shop is involved in firearms training courses and “wildlife specimen” exports, according to its website. Yang and shop employees didn’t respond to a request for comment on the civil claim allegations regarding Ge Wang’s restricted gun purchases from West Coast Hunting...

..The cash, vehicles, guns, phones and computers seized in these claims are proceeds and instruments of crime, the forfeiture claims allege. These assets will likely lead to “serious bodily harm to a person,” if defendants are allowed to retain them, the May 2017 claim says.

B.C.’s civil forfeiture office is not seeking to seize the Delta homes named in the May 2017 claim. But in an interview, Phil Tawtel, B.C.’s executive director of civil forfeiture, said that seizure claims can be “dynamic.”

Tawtel said he could not comment on these continuing cases, but generally, his office can amend claims and pursue additional assets if police produce strong-enough evidence. The office’s lawyers can also discover in litigation that properties are connected to crimes, Tawtel said, which can lead to amended claims.

According to land title records, the 5th Avenue property named in the claim, from which police seized cash and weapons in February 2017, is owned by Jasmine Xu, who lists her occupation as “housewife.” The property is valued at $1.96 million. According to title records, Jasmine Xu’s residential address is a Vancouver home on the 2600-block of 19th Avenue West, worth $3.94 million. The Vancouver home is not named in the claim. A review of B.C. title records shows that a “housewife” named Jasmine Xu owns a $1.26 million home on Parkgrove Crescent in Tsawwassen (also not named in the claim), which is about 30 metres from the U.S. border in Point Roberts, and a six-minute drive from the 5th Avenue mansion....

http://vancouversun.com/news/nationa...drugs-and-guns

[casper]

Originally Posted by whatnext

From Friday's Vancouver Sun, the massive investigation into money laundering and real estate now includes links to fentanyl and the gun violence. One has to wonder if anything good has come from this massive inflow of capital!

In December 2015, a new leg of the RCMP’s E-Pirate money-laundering investigation delved into Metro Vancouver’s underworld of fentanyl labs, gun sales and violent dial-a-dope gangs.

It started with undercover officers tracking the movements of a Burnaby man named Ge ‘Gary’ Wang.

The offshoot investigation, code-named Prophet, grew from extensive surveillance of the many alleged employees of E-Pirate’s primary target, Paul King Pao Jin. In E-Pirate, the RCMP and B.C. government documents allege a network of organized criminals established a massive underground banking channel between Richmond and Mainland China, using VIP gamblers from Macau to buy chips, mostly at River Rock Casino, in order to launder hundreds of millions in drug cash. The operation allowed ultra-wealthy Chinese businessmen, some allegedly with ties to organized crime, to move money from China to Canada while evading China’s tight capital export controls...

...In January 2017, according to legal filings, police learned that within a six-week period Wang had acquired 18 restricted firearms from West Coast Hunting Supplies in Richmond. Corporate records show that Hai Peng Yang is the gun shop’s director. The shop is involved in firearms training courses and “wildlife specimen” exports, according to its website. Yang and shop employees didn’t respond to a request for comment on the civil claim allegations regarding Ge Wang’s restricted gun purchases from West Coast Hunting...

..The cash, vehicles, guns, phones and computers seized in these claims are proceeds and instruments of crime, the forfeiture claims allege. These assets will likely lead to “serious bodily harm to a person,” if defendants are allowed to retain them, the May 2017 claim says.

B.C.’s civil forfeiture office is not seeking to seize the Delta homes named in the May 2017 claim. But in an interview, Phil Tawtel, B.C.’s executive director of civil forfeiture, said that seizure claims can be “dynamic.”

Tawtel said he could not comment on these continuing cases, but generally, his office can amend claims and pursue additional assets if police produce strong-enough evidence. The office’s lawyers can also discover in litigation that properties are connected to crimes, Tawtel said, which can lead to amended claims.

According to land title records, the 5th Avenue property named in the claim, from which police seized cash and weapons in February 2017, is owned by Jasmine Xu, who lists her occupation as “housewife.” The property is valued at $1.96 million. According to title records, Jasmine Xu’s residential address is a Vancouver home on the 2600-block of 19th Avenue West, worth $3.94 million. The Vancouver home is not named in the claim. A review of B.C. title records shows that a “housewife” named Jasmine Xu owns a $1.26 million home on Parkgrove Crescent in Tsawwassen (also not named in the claim), which is about 30 metres from the U.S. border in Point Roberts, and a six-minute drive from the 5th Avenue mansion....

http://vancouversun.com/news/nationa...drugs-and-guns

I think you have to separate what is being discussed in this threat into two camps. I think in this case these people are attempting to break Canadian law by trafficking in drugs or what have you. They should be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of Canadian law. If they also violated laws in other countries (that would be illegal by Canadian standards) they should also be extradited and prosecuted there.

This is very distinct and different from those who do not trust a communists country and are in search of safe haven to store their wealth and raise their kids. Far more sympathetic of that endeavor.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by casper

I think you have to separate what is being discussed in this threat into two camps. I think in this case these people are attempting to break Canadian law by trafficking in drugs or what have you. They should be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of Canadian law. If they also violated laws in other countries (that would be illegal by Canadian standards) they should also be extradited and prosecuted there.

This is very distinct and different from those who do not trust a communists country and are in search of safe haven to store their wealth and raise their kids. Far more sympathetic of that endeavor.

Face value - this makes sense. Tugs on the our strings of empathy, particularly those of us who immigrated to Canada.

However, its not reflected in reality.

How do you suppose someone from communist, centrally operated regime, acquires the wealth to move their kids to a prestigious university in Canada, and purchase multi million dollar properties?

As someone from a former eastern block country - I can assure you the levels of wealth migrating here are not acquired by above board, honest businessmen.

Feeling bad for someone who stole millions from government coffers, and is worried of getting caught and persecuted, is a mountains more difficult.

Particularly when it displaces someone who has worked and lived here, and who likely pays 50% of their income to taxes.

[Bdawe]

You are aware that China has had a market economy with plenty of wealth-generating opportunities for some decades now, no?

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by casper

I think you have to separate what is being discussed in this threat into two camps. I think in this case these people are attempting to break Canadian law by trafficking in drugs or what have you. They should be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of Canadian law. If they also violated laws in other countries (that would be illegal by Canadian standards) they should also be extradited and prosecuted there.

This is very distinct and different from those who do not trust a communists country and are in search of safe haven to store their wealth and raise their kids. Far more sympathetic of that endeavor.

As I've said before, those who immigrate here to start a new life absolutely deserve our support and encouragement. However, those who continue to leave the breadwinner in China while they move the wife and kiddies here do not. They are hypocrites who continue to make money off a system they claim to distrust. You're either in or you're out.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by Bdawe

You are aware that China has had a market economy with plenty of wealth-generating opportunities for some decades now, no?

Absolutely. Plenty of new wealth being created globally as markets open, and economies mature.

Ill stand by what I said.

The average person looking to transfer the amount of wealth required to purchase in Vancouver is not the type of hardworking immigrant being described in the original post I quoted.

This isn't a unique phenomenon - you think the Russian money flooding NYC/London is all above board?

There is a deliberate misinformation campaign here, centered around obfuscation, and false cries of racism.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Just going to point out that China is communist in name only, and has been for decades. What they've got is state-run capitalism, so actually fascism; plenty of ways to get rich under that system.

The problem is more to do with a lot of them having great business opportunism and little to no scruples - the phrase "he'd sell his own grandmother" comes to mind - and in that light, we are a very easy mark. As others have pointed out, many of the people in question are wanted back home on the mainland as well as here.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by whatnext

As I've said before, those who immigrate here to start a new life absolutely deserve our support and encouragement. However, those who continue to leave the breadwinner in China while they move the wife and kiddies here do not. They are hypocrites who continue to make money off a system they claim to distrust. You're either in or you're out.

Why are you always so angry with China? Did your dad also leave you and your mom here and went back to China to make a living for you?

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Vin

Why are you always so angry with China? Did your dad also leave you and your mom here and went back to China to make a living for you?

but No.

Capital fleeing from China has put housing out of reach for many working British Columbians. It is hollowing it out neighbourhoods and driving businesses out of the city. The logical conclusion is a resort city selling nothing but overpriced "luxury" goods to temporary residents.

So that (without even getting into China's role in environmental degradation and human rights abuses) is what angers me about China.

[whatnext]

Opinion piece traces BC's money laundering problem back to changes the BC Liberals brought down in 2001:

Could a question be posed of money-laundering at B.C. casinos similar to that of the philosophical thought experiment: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

The question might go like this: "If money-laundering happens and everyone looks the other way, was it really laundered?"

Citing a till-then secret 2016 report by auditor MNP LLP, the Vancouver Sun's Sam Cooper reported last fall that B.C.'s gaming-policy and enforcement branch (GPEB) had “compiled a document which identified approximately $13.5 million in $20 bills being accepted at River Rock Casino in July 2015”...

...Yet in an August 2015 interview with Business in Vancouver —one month after that $13.5 million walked in —the then-vice president of corporate security and compliance at Great Canadian Gaming, Robert Kroeker, insisted that: “money laundering doesn't happen at Great Canadian Gaming facilities. Regulations make it impossible to launder money through B.C. casinos.”...

...In the spring of 2014, almost $27 million “flowed through two B.C. casinos”—most in bundles of $20 bills—according to CBC News.

The bulk of it, $24 million, was at River Rock, one of Kroeker's facilities where “money laundering doesn't happen”.

An internal 2016 GPEB audit obtained by Cooper alleged “that, in 2015, three B.C. casinos allowed gamblers to purchase chips with $6.7 million from illegitimate lenders. River Rock accepted $5.37 million of that total—or 79 per cent.”

Less than four months after MNP delivered its report to former finance minister Mike de Jong, Great Canadian Gaming was one of the $10,000 sponsors of the B.C. Liberal party's 2016 convention....(bold mine)

https://www.straight.com/news/104846...-laundering-bc

This shit is going to stick top the BC Liberals for a long time. If they were smart they would finally rebrand, as it is now the BC Liberal brand is toxic.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Capital fleeing from China has put housing out of reach for many working British Columbians. It is hollowing it out neighbourhoods and driving businesses out of the city. The logical conclusion is a resort city selling nothing but overpriced "luxury" goods to temporary residents.....

I would like to chip in here, if I may, and say that I wholeheartedly agree with WHATNEXT, not only on the ethical / principles axis, but on the economic one.
As he states, regular people, with middle class (let alone working class) salaries will only find it increasingly impossible to live in the city due to the outrageous housing costs.
And it will get worse. Companies will not locate here because their employees will not be able to live on the salaries they are paid. Businesses are already leaving the city as said.
What will become of the city itself if housing costs are so exhorbitant that nobody but the very rich can afford to live here? The city will cave in on itself economically.
*In New Zealand, a law was recently passed prohibiting such investment properties, be they Chinese or otherwise. The recent tax applied here helped, but is not enough.
I think (and I know this is Politically Incorrect) that a move like that of New Zealand, initiated at either the provincial - or preferably federal - level, belongs here.
Rents are already stratospheric. What about people with lower-paying salaries? They could never start a family and live in the city. Something's gotta give - FAST!!!

My opinion only, but I'll come right out and say it: The Only Thing That Will Really Work To Put The Brakes on This Disaster is To Do What They Have Done In Australia & N.Z.: STOP OVERSEAS INVESTMENT IN HOUSING. (Unless homeless people are your thing.) These partial measures are not enough. You have to go all the way.

[Tourist9394]

Originally Posted by retro_orange

What an idiot.

Very few people have benefited, far more have been shut out. Inequality has been steadily rising in this country, in tandem with increasing amounts of foreign capital coming into Canada in the past 10-15 years.

Repeating ignorance of the past is just stupid. Canadians of Chinese descent whose families came here as recently as the 70's and 80's have been shut out and are outraged just the same as who you assume are dumb white people making these comments on here.

Canadians of Chinese descent or Canadians of Europeans descent can benefit from this if they didn't listen to the media narrative regarding housing price. If they didn't sell their land to developers, they would have gained much.

I don't understand why Canadians think foreign capital is bad, economy is booming with many immigrants consuming and paying sales tax and property tax.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Tourist9394

Canadians of Chinese descent or Canadians of Europeans descent can benefit from this if they didn't listen to the media narrative regarding housing price. If they didn't sell their land to developers, they would have gained much.

I don't understand why Canadians think foreign capital is bad, economy is booming with many immigrants consuming and paying sales tax and property tax.

How about because people are tired of being priced out of they cities they work in, just so some Chinese millionaire can stash his wife, kids and loot here? Those sales taxes and property taxes don’t fully cover the cost of services consumed when income tax is being avoided. There’s a big difference between a legitimate immigrant who brings his whole family with him to start a new life and those who continue their lives overseas.