B.C. Appeal Court overturns decision to return $2 million to alleged money launderers
Credit to Author: Gordon Hoekstra| Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 23:48:21 +0000
A B.C. Appeal Court has overturned a lower court decision to return $2 million in cash to the accused in B.C.’s biggest money-laundering case.
In a decision released Tuesday, Justice Mary Newbury granted a stay of the return of the money seized four years ago by the RCMP in the E-Pirate investigation that uncovered an underground bank that allegedly laundered as much as $220 million a year.
It means the money will continue to be held under a freeze order pending the outcome of a civil forfeiture case in B.C. Supreme Court that seeks to have the cash and assets, such as money from the sale of a Vancouver home, casino chips and jewelry, forfeited permanently as the proceeds of crime.
Last month, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled that an interim freeze of assets in the civil forfeiture case was done improperly, and ordered the release of the $2 million to the accused.
The judge had concluded the Civil Forfeiture Office did not provide a fair and complete legal basis to consider the need for an urgent freeze of the cash and assets.
Providing a fair and complete legal basis was particularly important, according to the judge’s ruling, given that the decision took place in an ex parte hearing, where the defence lawyer was not present.
The judge noted that the lawyer for the Civil Forfeiture Office allowed no room for opposing views of law, made no apparent effort to put forward the position the defendants’ lawyer would have taken and also misstated the law on one foundation point that favoured the forfeiture office’s position.
But Newbury, the Appeal Court judge, noted that while the lawyer had misstated the law, there was no finding this was intentional. Newbury also noted it was clear that irreparable harm to public interest would result if the money was returned.
“As (the judge who granted the return of the $2 million) acknowledged, the funds would no doubt be quickly dissipated or placed beyond the jurisdiction of the court if they were to be released immediately to the defendants,” Newbury wrote in her 14-page decision.
In the civil forfeiture suit, Caixuan Qin and her spouse, Jian Jun Zhu, are accused of running the underground bank in Richmond, called Silver International.
The pair have denied any wrongdoing, and said the search and seizures violated their Charter rights.
The release of the cash back to the accused was a major development in the civil forfeiture case that was launched immediately after criminal money-laundering charges were stayed against Qin and Zhu in late 2018.
The threshold for proving a civil claim is lower than for a criminal conviction, a balance of probabilities rather than beyond a reasonable doubt.
Provincial prosecutors were hoping to hit the accused in the pocketbook. The $2 million represents the bulk of the assets as the house, which recently sold for $1.88 million, was heavily mortgaged to the tune of $1.66 million.
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