The job market trails the headlines. Here’s an ad from last week: “Senior AML [anti-money laundering] Financial Crime Risk Investigator in Vancouver, British Columbia.”
The link has expired, so maybe they filled the position. The ad complements a 2018 Global News headline: “How Chinese gangs are laundering drug money through Vancouver real estate.” The story was that Chinese criminals “have infiltrated Canada’s economy so deeply that Australia’s intelligence community has coined a new term for innovative methods of drug trafficking and money laundering now occurring in B.C. It is called the ‘Vancouver Model’ of transnational crime.”
From a 2023 story, we learn that Canada’s Cullen Commission “concluded that organized crime had laundered billions of dollars in the province of British Columbia.”
A soft underbelly
This theme recurs in Canada, one is tempted to say, endlessly.
This spring, we saw a flurry of reports on Toronto Dominion (TD) Bank. In May 2024, for instance, the Wall Street Journal reported that a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into TD was focusing on “how Chinese drug traffickers and crime groups used the Canada’s second-largest lender to launder their money from fentanyl sales.”
Also in May, the Canadian regulator FINTRAC announced a $7.5 million fine for five violations by TD over a 12-month period. According to the Toronto Star’s Ana Pereira, “The staggering difference between the…potential fines [being imposed by the U.S. and Canada] against TD is evidenced by this: the bank has prepared to pay U.S. regulators nearly 50 times more than the administrative penalty levied by Fintrac, Canada’s financial crime watchdog.”
Is Canada becoming some sort of “soft underbelly” for this kind of crime? It would seem so. “ ‘Canada is the soft underbelly for Western democracies. Our whole system is very tolerant of foreign threats, and it’s becoming well known by not only threat actors, but our allies,’ said Calvin Chrustie, senior partner at the Critical Risk Team, a risk management and anti-money-laundering consulting firm.”
So, for example, TD’s corruption leaks into U.S. branches. In June 2024 it was reported that a former employee of a Florida TD branch employee “took a series of US$200 bribes to help clients move millions of dollars to Colombia by skirting anti-money-laundering defences, prosecutors allege in a case first reported this week by Bloomberg News. In another recent case, a former branch employee in New York admitted to bypassing the bank’s compliance measures to defraud a customer….
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey has so far filed at least four cases alleging serious misconduct by branch employees in New York, New Jersey and Florida. One of those cases, reported by the Wall Street Journal in early May, involved TD branches being used to launder drug money as part of a US$653 million conspiracy.”
Chinese criminals are well connected to Beijing decision makers. If Canada’s political structure is tied to Beijing, it will be hard to crack down on China’s lawbreakers.
A firm promise
In January 2023, ProPublica discussed a recent investigative report dominating Canadian headlines.
“Canadian intelligence had warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about a vast campaign of political interference by China.” Further, “The Canadian Security Intelligence Service had learned that Chinese consulate officials in Toronto had covertly funded a network of at least 11 political candidates in federal elections in 2019, the report said. The Chinese operation had also targeted Canadian political figures and immigrant leaders seen as opponents of the regime in Beijing, subjecting them to surveillance, harassment and attacks in the media, the report said. [Prime Minister] Trudeau responded with promises of action….”
A politician responds with promises of action. That’s not going to be a precedent, is it?
Trudeau (shown above with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping) did not need an intelligence report to tell him that Beijing was exerting control over Canadian politicians. By May 2023, the Michael Chong affair was making major headlines: a Conservative Party politician had been targeted for a pressure campaign that included targeting his Hong Kong relatives. Testifying before the U.S. Congress a few months later, Chong said that Beijing had come after him because of his criticism of the Chinese regime and its treatment of the Uyghurs.
“My experience is but one case of Beijing’s interference in Canada,” he said. “Many, many other cases go unreported and unnoticed, and the victims suffer in silence.”
By May 2023, China’s ambassador had been summoned to explain himself. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said that her government was considering retaliatory action in the Chong matter.
Respond with a promise—it’s the simplest solution to a crisis.
Mr. Chong should be happy that China did not sic the Canadian police on him. In July 2023, a retired policeman, Hong Kong native William Majcher, was charged with intimidating Chinese-Canadian residents on behalf of Beijing. “Targets are said to include members of parliament and Chinese dissidents.”
Traitors at the top
Likewise, Calvin Chrustie, mentioned above, said in October of last year that while serving in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, he had “received direction ‘from Ottawa at the highest level’ to ‘assist and collaborate with’ Chinese officials regarding a ‘high-profile fugitive that they were after in the Vancouver area.’ Chrustie said he refused to facilitate a meeting for the Chinese officials, who wanted to interview the fugitive and convince the person to voluntarily return to China to face prosecution.”
This is worse than a “soft underbelly.” China is midwifing the birth of a failed state. □
James Roth works for a major defense contractor in Virginia.
