Thread by @cjcmichel

Fantastic dive into Canada's overlooked role as an international money laundering ("snow-washing") haven of its own: …aredservices-ex.objectstore.gov.bc.ca/ag-pssg-cc-exh…

Real estate and lawyers play an outsized role—a familiar playbook.

The Canadian government's claims that Canada has a "robust and comprehensive anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regime" are "simply not credible."

In Canada, "relatively simple strategies like [using lawyers and real estate] probably work as well today as they did 20 years ago... From a launderer's point of view, why try harder when old strategies still work perfectly well?"

"Though records are now somewhat dated, up to 2012 Canada had never repatriated any proceeds of foreign corruption."

One bit of good news out of Canada:

"Given Canada's de-criminalization of marijuana, it has perhaps reduced money laundering more than any other country on Earth over the last few years.... It is surprising that analyses of money laundering overlook this fairly obvious point."

"A rough rule of thumb is that countries probably host illegal wealth in proportion to the size of their financial sectors. As such, the most criminal money, both domestic and foreign, is probably held in the United States"

And in Australia:

"The Australian federal government has chosen to turn a blind eye to these illicit inflows [despite] extensive surveillance and confiscation powers possessed by law enforcement"

One last highlight, on unexplained wealth orders:

—Ireland's used UWOs since the mid-1990s (generally successfully!)
—Australia's had UWOs federally for over a decade, yet they've "never been used" (still waiting on the "perfect" money laundering case, which will never come)