REAL SCOOP: Police ramp up search for fugitive gangster
Credit to Author: Kim Bolan| Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2019 01:02:22 +0000
A $50,000 reward has been offered to catch a former Burnaby man wanted for money laundering as part of a Vietnamese organized crime group operating in Canada and the United States.
Cong Dinh, 32, is believed to have fled to Vietnam before charges were laid against him and an associate in 2013.
On Tuesday, RCMP Chief Supt. Keith Finn, who is in charge of federal policing in B.C., said police have partnered with the BOLO program to launch a campaign that will hopefully lead to the arrest of Dinh.
“Dinh and the Vietnamese Organized Crime group he belonged to is alleged to have laundered millions of dollars from drugs trafficked onto Canadian streets,” Finn said.
He said the criminal organization was “allegedly moving ecstasy and marijuana south to the U.S. and cocaine north to Canada” and had affiliates in California, Mexico, Australia, Vietnam and across Canada.
“We are committed to continued collaboration with our domestic and International partners and are hopeful this new relationship with the BOLO Program will be the key in locating Dinh so he can be returned to Canada to answer to these charges.”
The BOLO — or Be On the Lookout — program aided in the arrest in California on Sunday of accused killer Brandon Teixeira, charged with a 2017 murder in Surrey.
And the program has also launched a campaign to find United Nations gangster Conor D’Monte, who is charged in connection with the 2009 murder of rival Red Scorpion Kevin LeClair.
Postmedia has learned that Dinh has some connections to the UN gang.
Dinh’s Goring Street, Burnaby, home was raided by the RCMP in 2013 in connection with the joint U.S.-Canada investigation.
He is facing five counts of laundering the proceeds of crime and one count of possession of the proceeds of crime.
Finn said the RCMP partnered with the California Division of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration in the international money laundering investigation and drug trafficking investigation.
California resident Minh Nguyen, also 32, pleaded guilty in California to money laundering and drug trafficking in the same case and was sentenced to eight years.
U.S. court documents indicate that undercover police officers on both sides of the border infiltrated the Nguyen Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO) as early as 2009.
Dinh is described in the documents as working for Nguyen, who boasted on wiretaps about having the best prices for cocaine, “B.C. bud” and ecstasy.
Nguyen “arranged for the transfer of drug trafficking proceeds from Vancouver, British Columbia to Orange County California through a hawala funds transfer (an alternative remittance system that transfers money without the physical or electronic transfer of funds),” the U.S. indictment said.
Dinh provided an undercover RCMP operator hundreds of thousands of Canadian dollars for each transaction, which would be converted to U.S. funds and dropped off at public places like Starbucks and McDonald’s in California.
On Nov. 17, 2009, “Cong delivered approx. $542,600 in Canadian currency at approximately noon. Cong placed the currency, which was contained in two duffle bags, into the trunk of [undercover officer 3’s] car. RCMP counted and authenticated the Canadian currency,” court documents said.
On Dec. 8, 2009, “Cong delivered approximately $591,060 in Canadian currency to UC3 at approximately 3 p.m. which was counted and authenticated by the RCMP.”
On Jan. 14 and 15, 2010, Dinh allegedly delivered another $1,090,255 to the RCMP undercover officers.
And on July 7, 2010, he is alleged to have delivered $547,500.
The reward will be administered by Crimestoppers in B.C. and is only available until June 2020.
BOLO program director Maxime Langlois said B.C. residents have been receptive to previous campaigns.
“I can tell you with absolute certainty that the people of the Lower Mainland have been doing a terrific job of being on the lookout for Canada’s most wanted,” he said. “Cong Dinh is wanted for money laundering. Behind his charges rest many other suspected criminal activities like drug trafficking that directly affect the children, people and communities of the Lower Mainland and British Columbia.”