Austin Cullen

The failure of a massive, multi-year money laundering investigation to yield charges is a "shocking" example of the shortfalls of federal financial crime law, British Columbia Premier David Eby said on Thursday, March 2, 2023.

No charges will be laid from a money laundering investigation into millions of dollars that moved through British Columbia casinos and Chinese bank accounts in what the province's attorney general called a "frustrating" end to the multi-year police probe.

Money laundering in British Columbia reached "staggering" levels due to inadequate efforts by police, politicians and regulators to curtail the crime, but there was no evidence it involved official corruption, a long-awaited public inquiry report has concluded.

A former director of the British Columbia Lottery Corporation's anti-money laundering office says he is the "whistleblower" that likely prompted the public inquiry examining how hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal cash flowed through the province's casinos.

Money laundering has distorted British Columbia's economy, fuelled the opioid crisis and overheated the real estate market, the province argued at the start of an inquiry into the criminal activity on Monday, February 24, 2020.

British Columbia's attorney general hopes an inquiry into money laundering will answer lingering questions about how the criminal activity flourished in the province and identify those who allowed it to happen.

A national public inquiry into money laundering would be beneficial, no matter which party wins the federal election, says British Columbia's attorney general.