There has been a lot of coverage since the massive money laundering case, dubbed E-Pirate, was dropped recently. Police believe the former Richmond money exchange was laundering up tens of millions for Asian organized crime, Mexican cartels and Middle Eastern criminal organizations. There is now an on-going civil forfeiture case.
There have been several good news stories related to the charges being stayed in this cases. Here are a few done my colleagues:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/money-laundering-trial-stayed-privilege-1.4946799
Over the holidays, I learned about charges being stayed in a second major organized crime case.
Here’s that story:
Charges stayed in another major B.C. international crime
case
Charges have been quietly stayed in another major B.C. case allegedly linked to the international drug trade.
In October 2017, the RCMP announced two Metro Vancouver residents had been charged with importing cocaine and trafficking fentanyl after a large drug shipment sent through the Port of Vancouver was seized.
“These seizures would definitely have impacted the transnational organized crime networks involved,” RCMP Supt. Cal Chrustie said at the time.
Yan Chau “Andrew” Lam was charged with conspiracy to import cocaine and possession for the purpose of trafficking. Sok Wai “Gertrude” Cheong was charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking.
The RCMP seized 132 kilograms of cocaine smuggled inside a container arriving from Brazil, as well as 40,000 fentanyl pills found during a subsequent search of a Richmond apartment.
Clik here to view.
Lam, 50, and Cheong, 44, had been scheduled to go to trial in the new year in provincial court in Richmond.
But earlier this month, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada stayed the charges.
Nathalie Houle, spokeswoman for the federal agency, said in an email Friday that: “The PPSC can confirm that a stay of proceedings has been entered in this matter.”
She said the charges were stayed according to the PPSC policy.
The policy states that prosecutions are only initiated and continued if there is a reasonable prospect of conviction based on the available evidence and if they are in the public interest.
“If the answer to both questions is yes, the decision to prosecute test is met. If not, and charges have been laid, the charges should be withdrawn or a stay of proceedings entered,” Houle said.
She provided no specifics about why there was no longer a reasonable prospect of a conviction or why the prosecution was no longer in the public interest.
Houle gave the same answer last month when money-laundering charges were stayed in the massive E-Pirate investigation into the alleged laundering of drug money through B.C. casinos.
A Vancouver couple and their Richmond company had faced charges of laundering the proceeds of crime, possession of property obtained by crime and failing to ascertain the identity of a client. But those charges were stayed on Nov. 22 even though a trial had been scheduled in the new year.
Just before the stay of charges, a five-week trial had been scheduled for Caixuan Qin, Jain Jun Zhu and Silver International Investments Ltd. stretching from January to April in 2019.
Both investigations were headed in B.C. by the RCMP’s Federal Serious and Organized Crime section.
RCMP Sgt. Janelle Shoihet said in an email Friday that she was “not in a position to provide any further specifics” about why the charges were laid.
“Ultimately the decision to enter a stay of proceedings lies with the Crown,” she said.
She said she had no information about whether the investigation is ongoing.
The RCMP was first alerted to the drug-smuggling scheme when U.S. agents at the Port of Los Angeles discovered three duffel bags full of cocaine inside a refrigerated container destined for the Port of Vancouver.
The Americans and the RCMP began a joint investigation to identify suspects and track the shipment as it proceeded to its destination.
Chrustie, who is now retired, also said after the charges were laid last year that police believed the drug smugglers were “tailgating,” meaning their illicit cargo was piggybacking on a legitimate shipment of goods.