There was a lot of talk about this subject in the comments section of Monday’s blog, and even a couple of readers who asked me to weigh in.
I hesitated to opine about the topic for one really, really big reason: everything we discuss in merely speculation.
Sure, those of you who post anonymously can rest on your impossible-to-prove laurels, and claim, “I happen to know for a fact that X, Y, and Z individuals are responsible for $Q amount of money laundering each year,” but this conversation really has no definitive answers, and finite endings.
Not only that, I honestly don’t know if we’ll come to a consensus, or be able to offer any potential solutions.
Having said that, I do want to make one thing abundantly clear before we move on: I was wrong.
I was wrong, oh-so-wrong, about FINTRAC.
On November 30th, 2018, I wrote a blog post called, “The Friday Rant: Forget FINTRAC!”
Now to be honest, I still stand by most of what I wrote in that blog post, because I believe that governmental waste, inefficiency, over-spending, bureaucracy, and make-work projects are at an all-time high in Canada, and I don’t see any preventative measures in place with the FINTRAC regulations in real estate.
However, I will freely and humbly admit that I was wrong when I suggested that there was “zero evidence” of rampant money laundering in real estate.
It didn’t take long for my readers to jump all over that with press releases to the contrary.
But last week, the story absolutely blew up.
Most of the news came out of British Columbia, and it started with an article about luxury car sales:
The Vancouver Sun, Tuesday, May 7th, 2019: “‘Bags Of Money’ Being Used To Buy Cars In B.C., According To New Money Laundering Report”
From the article:
In one instance, a luxury vehicle was purchased from a dealer with $240,000 in cash. Several staff took the money to the car dealer’s bank because of safety concerns.
The bank accepted the money because it is not illegal to do so from a business such as a luxury car dealer, said former deputy RCMP commissioner Peter German, the author of the report.
Presumably, the bank made a large money transaction report to Canada’s financial intelligence gathering agency, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (Fintrac), added German.
Federal laws do not require that luxury car dealers make suspicious or large money transaction reports to Fintrac, something that needs to change, said B.C. Attorney-General David Eby.
Upon reading this article, a colleague of mine remarked, “Just watch – the next article will be about real estate.”
And he was right.
It only took two days, but the newspaper followed up with this:
The Vancouver Sun, Thursday, May 9th, 2019: “$5 Billion Laundered Through B.C. Real Estate, Inflating Home Prices: Report”
From the article:
The cost of buying a home in B.C. increased by as much as five per cent last year due to more than $5 billion in dirty money from organized crime laundered through the province’s real estate sector, according to a new expert panel report.
Former deputy attorney general Maureen Maloney chaired the panel on money laundering, which released a report Thursday that concluded it “cautiously estimates that almost five per cent of the value of real estate transactions in the province result from money laundering investment.”
In addition, she concluded: “The estimated impact of that would be to increase housing prices by about five per cent.”
“Successfully reducing money laundering investment in B.C. real estate should have modest but observable impact on housing affordability,” read the Maloney report.
She said actual figures are difficult to calculate — at one point dubbing them “estimating the inestimable” — but that the prevalence of dirty cash and organized crime trying to avoid taxes has distorted the economy.
However, her report concluded $47 billion in money laundering occurred in Canada in 2018.
Of that, $7.4 billion was in B.C., making it only the fourth-highest in the country behind Ontario, Alberta and the Prairies.
Wait a minute…just wait…
Did I read that correctly?
“Of that, $7.4 Billion was in B.C., making it on the fourth-highest in the country behind Ontario, Alberta, and the Praries?”
I find this fascinating for two reasons:
1) I can’t believe British Columbia is not first on the list, and yes, it’s for reasons that I believe some might find culturally-insensitive, but I would find it irresponsible not to have this discussion.
2) I can’t believe Ontario is first on the list! What in the world…
Now if you read the rest of the article, you’ll see that they have provided this helpful, yet not entirely helpful graph:
(credit: Vancouver Sun)
This is great, except that it only goes up to 2015.
And the article is referencing $7.4 Billion in laundered money in B.C. in 2018, not to mention $47 Billion in Canada in total.
Later in the article, we’re given this beauty as well:
(credit: Vancouver Sun)
“No available estimates” plays right into my point, which is simply that I don’t know how accurate we can be when it comes to estimating money laundering, and that none of us really know how big the problem is.
I’m not downplaying this, but rather I question the accuracy, and attempts at attaining it.
The same goes for these never-ending conversations that took place from 2015 to 2018 about “foreign buyers.”
Remember when the evil, faceless, nameless foreign buyer was to blame for rising real estate prices? Estimates on how much of a role they played ranged from as little as 3-5% from more credible sources (economists, CMHC, et al) up to 10-15% from those of us, myself included, that would go on feel more than anything else.
In markets like Toronto and Vancouver, in periods like the spring of 2017, foreign buyers were snapping up just about everything in sight. An estimate of 10-15% during that period would have been low in the eyes of many.
I can’t find the article, but I do remember reading a quote from somebody at CMHC saying that while best efforts are made, the estimates were exactly that: estimates. They couldn’t say for certain how close their numbers were to reality.
When it comes to the data the government has collected on money laundering, I actually think that these numbers may be more accurate than even a cynic like me would believe.
“Combatting Money Laundering in B.C. Real Estate” is a 184-page report that was put together by three professors at B.C. universities for the Minister of Finance and Deputy Premier, Carole James.
I don’t have time to go through 184 pages, but I did spend a solid 20 minutes reading through this on Tuesday.
Of note:
The amount of money laundering is significant, but it is difficult to measure.
The Panel conservatively estimates annual money laundering activity in 2015 in Canada at $41.3 billion ($46.7 billion for 2018) and in BC at $6.3 billion ($7.4 billion for 2018). This is the first money laundering estimate for Canada or a province generated on the basis of economic analysis and modelling and the first estimate of money laundering over time. However, it must be stressed that the inherent secrecy of an activity designed to hide the true nature
of financial transactions, together with the lack of reliable, internationally consistent data, means that there is no definitive way to measure money laundering activity. The methodology used is likely to generate an estimate of money laundering near its lower bound.Money laundering investment in BC real estate is sufficient to have raised housing prices and contributed to BC’s housing affordability issue.
The data limitations that make it difficult to estimate the level of money laundering make it even more challenging to estimate the allocation of money laundering to specific economic sectors, such as real estate and the impact of that investment on house prices. The Panel cautiously estimates that almost 5 percent of the value of real estate transactions in the province result from money laundering investment. The estimated impact of that would be to increase housing prices by about 5 percent. Successfully reducing money laundering investment in BC real estate should have a modest but observable impact on housing affordability.
Most of the proposed solutions, of course, have to do with more government regulation, oversight, and undoubtedly new jobs created.
The authors of the report offered twenty-nine recommendations on how to combat money laundering, and transparency seemed to be the running theme.
This week, the articles in the Vancouver Sun continued to run:
Monday, May 13th: “Attorney General Wants To Name Names In A Public Inquiry On Money Laundering”
Tuesday, May 14th: “The Power Of Public Inquiry Into Money Laundering: How Much Will B.C. Have?”
And finally this week, the conversation turned to Toronto:
Tuesday, May 14th, 2019: “Realtors Call For Land Registry To Crack Down On Money Laundering”
On the surface, this is more P.R. by the Ontario Real Estate Association and the Toronto Real Estate Board to act as though Realtors care.
But a bit deeper lays the fact that there’s a fine line between “protecting privacy” and “assisting money launderers,” or at least that’s how I perceive all of this.
Let’s not forget that if you want to know the directors of any numbered Ontario corporation, you can pull those records. The more sophisticated individuals will use shell companies, offshore accounts, and anything you can dream up in movies or TV shows. But not every money launderer is so sophisticated.
A very important part of the Toronto Star article says the following:
Registries have proven effective in discouraging criminals, who buy homes through numbered companies and with cash to make it difficult or impossible to trace the origin of funds. Cash purchases of luxury real estate by anonymous companies plummeted 70 per cent in areas where the U.S. Department of Justice imposed a requirement that purchasers reveal their identities.
Great, so sign us up.
British Columbia is the first province in Canada to institute such a registry, and it won’t (or shouldn’t…) be long before the province of Ontario follows suit.
The one part of the article I took issue with was this:
Garry Clement, former national director of the RCMP’s proceeds of crime program, now trains bankers and other professionals — including real-estate agents — on how to catch money laundering.
He said he was shocked when he asked a room full of real-estate agents how many of them had ever accepted cash payments.
“The hands shot up,” he said. “They just didn’t see anything wrong with it.”
Even when they suspect something is fishy, real-estate agents don’t want to turn down big commissions.
“They haven’t taken (the money laundering rules) seriously,” he said. “This plays into the hands of organized crime.
“They’ll never get it right until some prominent agent or broker is walked out in handcuffs,” he said. “At some point, everyone has an obligation to put ethics ahead of profit.
A few points:
1) I have never seen cash in a transaction, through 15 years in this business. Not a dollar, let alone $100,000.
2) I would never accept cash in any form, so the quote, “They just didn’t see anything wrong with it” can’t be taken at face value.
3) “Turning down big commissions” has nothing to do with this, or at least, not for agents like myself.
As I write this, I have two listings for which the general public is clamouring for me to represent them in a multiple-offer situation. There’s a lineup at the door, for real.
I have told every single one of these people who I will not, under any circumstances, represent both buyer and seller.
I even have people – in this area, many of them Bay Street lawyers or financial service employees, explaining to me, “You stand to make $XX more if you double-end this, what’s the problem?”
I value my reputation and good standing above all else, because it’s how I got to where I am.
So these quotes above, about agents “not seeing anything wrong with it” and “not wanting to turn down big commissions” are ones that I find insulting.
I don’t believe this quote is accurate. Yes, there are bad apples in our industry, but most agents wouldn’t know what to do with $10,000 in cash, and somewhere in their brokerage, management and/or ownership would advise them to proceed in a different direction.
If somebody showed up to my brokerage with $100,000 in cash, I would turn them away. I’d like to believe that so too would every other agent in my firm.
So in the end, I offer zero solutions here, folks.
But I was honest about this in the beginning.
Discuss, debate, opine, but what’s the solution? Do any of us have one? Do any of us trust the government to figure this out? Or do we believe that a notably-reactive government can never expect to stay one step ahead of the sophisticated money launderers?
One thing I believe we can all admit, however, is that the data provided in the reports referenced above, even if slightly inflated (when in fact they could be conservative), are cause for concern for all Canadians.
I, for one, am in favour of anything that OREA or TREB suggest we implement, as an industry.
Chris
at 7:23 am
David, good on you for admitting that you were wrong with regards to FINTRAC.
We may not be able to confidently determine the full extent of money laundering, but I believe we have a robust enough body of evidence at this point to declare it a serious problem.
With regards to Garry Clement’s comments, how many times have you discussed the incompetence of other Realtors on this blog? Is it really a stretch to think that some of them, particularly those less experienced or doing it as a second job, are ill-informed on the anti money laundering regulations?
Kyle
at 9:19 am
“Now to be honest, I still stand by most of what I wrote in that blog post, because I believe that governmental waste, inefficiency, over-spending, bureaucracy, and make-work projects are at an all-time high in Canada, and I don’t see any preventative measures in place with the FINTRAC regulations in real estate.
However, I will freely and humbly admit that I was wrong when I suggested that there was “zero evidence” of rampant money laundering in real estate.”
He is not admitting to be wrong about FINTRAC (because he was not wrong about FINTRAC), he said he admits to being wrong when he said there was “zero evidence” of money laundering.
If you look at the recommendations in the report, David (and i) were bang on about how ineffective FINTRAC is. Contrary to those who call for throwing more money at FINTRAC to do more of whatever they are currently doing in the name of AML. The first recommendation is for the Government to create a registry of beneficial owners. Where they do make recommendations about FINTRAC, it is actually quite critical of how FINTRAC currently operates and calls out a lot of the same window dressing activities (e.g. one-way collecting of data, not providing a portal or open data to others, focusing on arbitrary dollar amounts instead of suspicious activity).
As for the arguments about FINTRAC being a deterrent, clearly with $47B conservatively estimated in money laundering, they weren’t a very effective deterrent.
And given that 3 Professors (who probably earn less than $500K per year), were able to unearth more than FINTRAC ever has with its $50-60M annual budget (God only knows how much of that is spent creating their self-justifying Annual Report), i think it’s safe to say they are very ineffective.
Chris
at 12:22 pm
“He is not admitting to be wrong about FINTRAC (because he was not wrong about FINTRAC), he said he admits to being wrong when he said there was “zero evidence” of money laundering.”
“Having said that, I do want to make one thing abundantly clear before we move on: I was wrong. I was wrong, oh-so-wrong, about FINTRAC.”
“If you look at the recommendations in the report, David (and i) were bang on about how ineffective FINTRAC is.”
Some quotes from the report in question:
“The Panel heard that the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) is engaging with more regulators and that there are cooperation mechanisms among regulators and with law enforcement, but that more needs to be done to coordinate among agencies.”
“Constitutional constraints limit the analysis that Canada’s financial intelligence unit, FINTRAC, can conduct. The fact that FINTRAC is not authorized to request information from any reporting entity creates a gap, however, FINTRAC does cooperate effectively with law enforcement agencies. The Canadian authorities have achieved some success in combating money laundering, notably when conducting law enforcement efforts with the support of FINTRAC’s analysis.”
“In particular, FINTRAC’s core purpose is to collect information on suspicious transactions and financial flows and to determine whether the information gives rise to a reasonable suspicion that can be appropriately shared with law enforcement agencies, federal agencies such as the Canada Revenue Agency, and designated regulators. To maintain this balance, FINTRAC’s mandate explicitly excludes investigation, which is the mandate of law enforcement and regulatory agencies with which FINTRAC has authority to share information. As a result, the information that is shared is quite limited, the threshold for sharing information is relatively high and the group of agencies with which the information may be shared is narrow. FINTRAC is also restricted in seeking additional information from reporting entities. Together, these limitations are not consistent with FATF recommendations or International AML best practices. FINTRAC should be authorized to undertake more intelligence analysis and disseminate it to designated recipients, in a way that is compliant with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and consistent with Canadian cultural norms.”
“According to data provided by FINTRAC for the period 2014–2017, 98 percent of suspicious transaction reports related to real estate come from regulated financial institutions, indicating severe under-reporting by other actors in the real estate industry, particularly real estate brokerages.”
I could go on, but I think you get the point. The report is, in no way, suggesting that we forget FINTRAC. It recommends improving FINTRAC, and the communication it has with enforcement agencies (among many other things).
As I said on the previous blog post on the topic, “FINTRAC and related enforcement should be toughened, rather than scrapped as this blog post seems to be suggesting.” It would appear that Professors Maloney, Somerville, and Unger agree with this assessment.
David Fleming
at 9:38 am
@ Chris
I’m still a little torn on this, to be quite honest.
On the one hand, I’m against the idea of government over-regulating, and/or saddling industries with requirements that are often misguided. For example, I didn’t like the idea of the Green Energy Audit being a mandatory requirement for all home sales in Canada. If we’re talking about the “greater good,” then sure, it’s a fantastic idea. But this merely opens the door to the government sitting on our couch, in our living room, 24/7. Where does it start, and where does it end? When will the government tell us what we can eat?
On the other hand, I truly didn’t realize how real the problem of money laundering through Canadian real estate truly is. If this is driving up the price of homes (which a basic supply/demand argument would show that it is), then I would argue the government should do almost anything in its power to fight it. I believe in Canadians first. I believe that hard-working, law-abiding, tax-paying Canadians should be placed long before foreign interests, whether that money is legitamite, or not.
I do have a hard time believing that the problem is so “Canada-wide.” I’d have guessed that HALF of all money laundering through real estate takes place in BC, specifically Vancouver and the surrounding area. But I have a family friend who is a lawyer north of the city, and every month, another farmer comes into his office and says, “I got an offer to sell my farm.” That money all comes from offshore trusts, and it’s likely all from Hong Kong, or the Middle East. Those lands will one day be mega-cities, owned by foreign interests. Now should we have a conversation about whether we want that to happen, whether the money is legit or not? That’s a topic for another day…
Chris
at 12:32 pm
I understand and agree with you that government over-regulation is a concern. I doubt anyone wants all businesses saddled with choking amounts of red tape. But when we have so many varied groups warning us about the scale of money laundering in our country, the status quo is no longer an option.
As I said the other day, how long do we realistically think the US State Department will keep warning us about terrorists laundering money in our country, before they (Trump) decide to go from words to actions?
Beyond the embarrassment this heaps on Canada, and the ethical arguments about the importance of the rule of law, our trading partners will, I suspect, eventually expect us to combat this criminal activity, or punish us for our complacency.
Carl
at 9:39 am
Of course we will never know even approximate amount of the money being laundered through RE, for the same reason that we will never know the size of the underground economy or the number of extramarital affairs.
In order to take a problem seriously, it is not necessary to know its size, it should be enough to know that it is large.
When the BC government adopted measures to deal with money laundering, a correction in Vancouver RE market followed. A random coincidence perhaps?
Whaaa?
at 9:51 am
Basically, if you don’t trust “the government” to tackle money laundering, you’ve given up. Who else could/would do it? Corporations? Don’t make me laugh. Unfortunately, politicians/bureaucrats are the only option, so rather than sh•••ing on them, maybe try to offer them some help or guidance in addressing the issue.
Jonathan
at 11:11 am
Yeah I mean if you can’t trust the GOVERNMENT then who can ya trust? 🙂
BJA
at 11:50 am
Not a rhetorical question, despite your snarky tone implying so. Who would you trust? We want answers!
Housing Bear
at 10:27 am
In regards to FINTRAC- I agree with with Kyle and David. Why throw more money at them when they were oblivious to what has been going on the last few years. I would also guess that the dollar volumes were much higher in 2016 and early 2017 then 2015.
Beneficial ownership registries are necessary across all of Canada or else the money will just park elsewhere. I’m sure alot of money is fleeing BC right now looking for somewhere else to hide.
Ontario may have more dollar volume than BC but it is also spread out over a much large economy and populace. The impact on BC is worse.
One other thing I am not clear about is the methodology used to track the dollar flow. Money launderers don’t just put their money into one place and then leave it there until it is time to use it. They like to move it around multiple times to make it harder for the bums at Fintrac to follow. For example, make a cash loan to someone in BC. When it is repaid use it to buy a house. Sell that house and make a new loan to someone else (maybe a Canadian this time). When you get that money back buy a house in Ontario… etc. Point I am getting at here, it is possible that the same dirty dollar was counted a few times if they did not allow for this
Housing Bear
at 10:34 am
With an election coming up. I fear the libs will pander to the populace by just throwing a bunch of money to look like they are doing something. In the earlier reports from BC there is strong reason to believe that the governing politicians (BC Liberals) were aware of the problem and ignored it….. potentially worse.
Fun fact, Bill Chin just got appointed to the PMOs office. He use to be communications director for the BC Libs. Maybe the logic here is that it takes one to know one?
Chris
at 12:35 pm
While you and I usually align on subjects, this is one where we disagree. As I outlined above, I don’t think the answer is to abolish FINTRAC, nor is this recommended in the report.
Improve reporting, communication between agencies, enforcement, stiffen penalties, etc.
But getting rid of our national financial intelligence unit does not seem like a step in the right direction.
Housing Bear
at 1:33 pm
I wouldnt abolish FINTRAC. I would just focus more effort on making the data they have at there disposal more effective then trying to increase their budget.
Chris
at 2:12 pm
Agreed. Simply throwing money at them isn’t the answer. Ensuring their data collection is robust, properly analyzed, and shared with enforcement agencies in a timely manner should be the top priorities.
Mike
at 10:28 am
No chance this Ontario government implements any measures to try and monitor/track money laundering (similar to BC)
Housing Bear
at 10:39 am
That’s what I thought too, but the fact OREA and TREB came out publicly puts a lot more pressure on DOFO.
Won’t happen overnight, some think we will have a short term spike here in dirty cash. Combo of net new coming here instead of BC and people liquidating assets in BC and then buying assets here.
If I was crook I personally would not risk putting anymore into Ontario though. Have to assume the rules are coming here eventually. I would rather gamble on Quebec. There politicians have a reputation for playing ball.
Kyle
at 11:14 am
Registering beneficial ownership of real estate seems like a no-brainer to me. It’s just adding data to a database. Lawyers can update it when they register the property, so the costs (DOFO’s key consideration) shouldn’t be much of a factor.
In fact long run, if this data is widely collected, you can replace the pencil pushers with machine learning, to far better identify/predict money laundering. Now that would actually be effective.
Housing Bear
at 11:39 am
Agreed and I would love to see more of the gov pencil pushers replaced by tech.
Also once the MLs know that the government would have the data to come after them if they wanted, it should act as a huge deterrent
Jimbo
at 8:55 pm
Do you work with machine learning or big data?
Kyle
at 9:11 am
No i do not, but i have seen similar examples where computers “learned” how to identify patterns and insights in data sets and are being used to predict failures in processing with over 90% accuracy. Over time as they go process more data (i.e. testing and validation cases) their accuracy improves.
With data, they could identify WAY WAY MORE red flags, like if certain bank accounts get a disproportionate number of regular small cash deposits, transfers from crypto wallets or accounts that buy a disproportionate number of gift cards, and probably hundreds of other scenarios that humans haven’t thought about. By comparison, FINTRAC pencil pushers collecting forms and documents for transactions over their arbitrary threshold, leaves a whole lot to be desired.
Carl
at 12:04 pm
“No chance this Ontario government implements any measures …”
We’ll see. At the very least it will be discussed. It will be interesting to see who lobbies against such measures.
Mxyzptlk
at 12:44 pm
I daresay if Doogie feels (or is told that) ML is a “Toronto problem,” the probability that he does anything about it is nonexistent.
m m
at 4:59 pm
If dofo feels that it would hurt his developer donor buddies, he will definitely not do anything about, and may loosen the rules even more.
Franky B
at 11:01 am
I work for one of the large banks. In the financial services industry, the government has simply decided to make money laundering the banks’ problem. They are responsible for it, it’s their problem, and if they fail to stop it, they get penalized (including possibly criminal charges) and badly fined. As a result, each of the big banks has sophisticated systems and literally hundreds of employees dedicated to tackling the issue. I can promise you the government has scared the daylights out of every bank and insurance company as a result, and they take it quite seriously.
The question is, does the federal government have the political will to extend the same to all industries?
Condodweller
at 12:37 pm
Banks were the low hanging fruit in combating ML. Was it Scarface where the drug dealers were walking bags of money into the bank? Logically, any sector or business that deals in large $ transactions should be the target for AML. We shouldn’t be surprised that RE is exploited for this.
If I was put in charge to come up with strategies to fight ML I would start by identifying any business with potential large value single transactions and at the very least make it mandatory for them to complete a large transaction report or make it downright illegal. Most, if not all, investment firms will not accept cash as an investment. If you have a large amount of cash to invest, you are told to put it in the bank and then it can be transferred. The bank if effectively the gate to fight ML.
I’m not surprised about car dealerships being used in ML now. Given the fact, we can easily buy vehicles well in excess of $100k that would be an obvious place to use until it’s cut off.
Izzy Bedibida
at 3:07 pm
Agree. My friend works for HSBC in the compliance dept, and she has told me the same story-especially the one with HSBC being under watch and sanctions because they were caught up dealing with Mexican drug money.
As for Housing Bear’s comment about using AI…well HSBC has a sophisticated AI system, and many human pencil pushers/compliance officers have been let go because of AI. She basically confirms/cross checks the AI’s suspicions.
Not Harold
at 8:08 am
Eh the fines aren’t that bad compared to the revenue and profits.
HSBC and Deutsche got away with ALOT and while they had large fines they don’t look to be large enough to wipe out the profits from the activity.
We’ll see what happens to some of the Nordic banks that have been caught up with Russian money laundering through Baltic subsidiaries. When you get caught a few execs get fired but there’s still a TON of money…
In my experience with AML at banks, they spend enough to make it look good and get regulators off their back. But there’s a lot of profit to be made by having “accidents”
No one is afraid of OFSI or OSC – they’re afraid of US Treasury, SEC, DOJ, etc. The US levies big fines while Canadian regulators can’t prosecute Sino Forest.
Izzy Bedibida
at 9:09 am
My friend mentioned that. HSBC sanctions expire soon, and there’s a chance that a top executive will “accidentally” make a “mistake” once the sanctions expire, and no one is looking over their shoulders anymore.
Condodweller
at 12:44 pm
This is an interesting quote: “However, it must be stressed that the inherent secrecy of an activity designed to hide the true nature of financial transactions, together with the lack of reliable, internationally consistent data, means that there is no definitive way to measure money laundering activity.”
I think it’s safe to assume that whatever numbers and estimates are being reported by various organizations, that the actual number is much larger due to this one fact about secrecy.
At the very least, when we have four year old data, we can assume just like any business grows over time, criminal enterprise also grows thereby necessitating larger amounts to be laundered each year resulting in higher amounts today..
TIff
at 12:45 pm
I’d bet that a lot of the foreign money buying RE is not even considered real criminal “money laundering.” Even a lot of middle class Chinese citizens considering buying foreign RE as a safe place to park their money.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2095827/why-are-middle-class-chinese-moving-their-money-abroad
Lui
at 2:51 pm
Doesn’t take a expert to see what was happening in BC.Visa students buying $3 million homes,driving Ferarri’s and head to toe in LV and Supreme garb.It is time for CREA to come out and say they support Ottawa in forcing buyers to show where the money came from and who is the buyer and a shell company.Vancouver is finally slowly showing price decreases.
Bryan Marquess
at 1:49 pm
Is there any chance that a recent sale in a condo building was $650,000 when there were no previous sales over $400,000 could be related to money laundering? Or do we just blame a hot market? No cash involved.