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Stephen Punwasi 🏚️📉🐈☃️ Profile picture
@StephenPunwasi
Jan 30 • 25 tweets • 10 min read • Read on X
🇨🇦’s public safety minister just said less than 1% of 🇺🇸’s fentanyl is from 🇨🇦, and ditto for illegal immigrants.

Here's why that's a whopper of a lie. Warning: Your opinion of 🇨🇦 will irreversibly change.

<thread> 🧵👇
2/ Last year 🇺🇸’s border seized ~19.6k lbs of fentanyl.

🇨🇦 busts in Q4:
- a lab in BC was producing ~4% that volume per year
- a lab in AB produced ~1% of that volume

In 🇨🇦, just these 4 busts in Q4 represented over $1 billion of drug profits. Image
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3/ I doubt that was hand-crafted, artisanal fentanyl destined for sale at local farmers markets. 🇨🇦 has been well aware of this for decades.

The DEA alleged that El Chapo stated 🇨🇦 was more lucrative than the 🇺🇸 & sent a lieutenant as a student.
4/ Quick sidebar on immigration. 🇨🇦 claims it has robust screening, but literally anyone that showed up could get a student visa with an acceptance letter until last year.

No background checks. The letter was never verified. Popular w/organized crime.
5/ back to fentanyl. I'm not a housing guy by trade, my team fell into housing when we were confused by Vancouver real estate prices.

I'm actually a quant by training that specializes in tracking capital flows, legal or otherwise. Money is zero sum, so there's always a source.
6/ when we crunched the numbers back in 2016/17, we identified one party—an organized crime group that stopped laundering in it's traditional region. The flows were too similar to ignore.

We published it. Facebook banned it. Old twitter wouldn't even let it pass in DMs.
7/ after being branded a racist, I get a call from the former director of the RCMP who is dumbfounded by the fact we nailed it right down to the gang.

@scoopercooper dug & uncovered the Vancouver Model—yes, a money laundering model is named after a city in 🇨🇦.
8/ The Vancouver Model is simple:
- drug money is traded for casino chips
- cash out w/a casino cheque
- deposit "tax free winnings" at a bank
- buy a house w/the proceeds & pay the mortgage w/"rent"
- repeat

guys literally went to high roller tables w/grocery bags of cash
9/ fun side note—Cooper did an interview w/a person on my staff, describing the inquiry & the Vancouver Model.

Facebook immediately banned everyone at my company, and I was labeled a critic of China despite me not saying anything, Shout out to the 🇺🇸 billionaire who fixed it.
10/ Money laundering is like cockroaches—a place doesn't just have one. So it was time to look at Greater Toronto real estate.

The fine folks at Transparency International let me help w/a study where we found $25.4b in mortgages w/blatant laundering flags & anon ownership.
11/ Politicians pretended to crack down, but then generated liquidity. Their primary concern wasn't the laundering, but a bust pushing prices down.

Toronto went on to become the fentanyl control center of the world, according to 🇺🇸 (under BIDEN!).
12/ How corrupt is 🇨🇦? One of the world's biggest fentanyl dealers was running his operations using a prison mail system.

That would be absurd in Jalisco, but it didn't even make the news in 🇨🇦. I wonder why. 🤷‍♂️
13/ Most folks don't know 🇨🇦's gov orders media bans, preventing discussion of a case.

A recent case involving the RCMP director of intel (🇨🇦's FBI). The Five Eyes director allegedly leaked to a "kingpin launderer" representing Sinaloa cartel, & terror orgs.
14/ Speaking of the cartel, guess who their banker is?

Good old Toronto Dominion (TD) Bank.

They recently paid the largest penalty of its kind in 🇺🇸 history. That’s a frickin accomplishment.
15/ & speaking of laundry mats, HSBC Canada was recently acquired by RBC, w/odd terms such as lending to the small group of developers in BC.

The finance minister at the time must have forgot they were under investigation at the time of the rushed exit. So weird!
16/ that’s a lot about BC but what about Ontario? To start we know casinos were used for the same reason.

Why? 🇨🇦 was told by an intel agency that the world’s largest car theft gang arrived & is using casinos. 🇨🇦 ignores it, goes on to become a car theft capital. Sense a trend?
17/ after pressure to improve AML, 🇨🇦 hit casinos with new reporting regulations. Surely this will catch the laundering in Ontario, right?

Funny story. A regulator hit a casino with an allegation, and whoops! The AML reporting system for casinos went offline for 6 months. Darn!
18/ When places have low statistical corruption, it’s because:
- it has low corruption; or
- it’s too corrupt to even try enforcing

Ontario resembles the latter when it comes to drugs. No major drug lab busts, but 🇺🇸 seems to arrest a lot of smugglers from ON. 🤔 Image
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19/ If you’re starting to think there’s something wrong with 🇨🇦’s government, 🇨🇦’s government feels the same way.

The country’s organized crime intelligence unit estimates 1 in 4k adults in 🇨🇦 are organized crime & 260 organized crime groups work in government.
20/ let’s gloss over the fact that Australia’s largest fentanyl bust was a shipment recently being smuggled from 🇨🇦.

Granted, it wasn’t as stylish as 🇨🇦’s coke/meth in a vintage Bentley that occurred a few days later.
21/ okay, I will admit—🇨🇦 provides less than 1% of 🇺🇸’s illegal immigrants. However, when it comes to supervillains? 🇨🇦 is the undisputed champ.

🇺🇸 border encounters w suspected terrorists are 500% higher on the 🇨🇦 border vs 🇲🇽. 1% of illegals, 80% of terror suspects.
22/ which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Remember those launderers above? They launder for terrorists and drug dealers, and business is booming.

🇨🇦 has a strange history as a major terror hub. Like the time CSIS destroyed evidence it had someone on the air India bombing.
23/ or why 🇨🇦 is ignoring a 27-year old Interpol red card notice for the alleged assassin of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.
24/ Seems a little sketchier than most people would assume, eh?

And we’re only really discussing two provinces. Nova Scotia for instance has “no crime,” but is overrepresented for laundering activity. The port also makes frequent appearances in 🇺🇸 Intel reports. 🤷‍♂️
24/ anyway, I think you get the point.

🇨🇦’s reputation as a boring place where nothing happens has been a carefully constructed facade.

And for those who think that laundering has a small impact on 🇨🇦’s housing market, here’s a thread on why that’s just plain wrong.

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More from @StephenPunwasi

Stephen Punwasi 🏚️📉🐈☃️ Profile picture
Dec 3
🇨🇦: who wants a funny GDP story? 🙋‍♂️

When a quant sees an unexpected surge on a chart, they break it down—it’s often a modeling issue.

This is 🇨🇦’s GDP chart. I stared at it for ~8 hours & talked to StatCan. You’re gonna laugh…

<thread> 🧵👇
2/ What do we see? Imports contributed 0.7 points out of 0.6 points of Q3 GDP growth. The rest of the economy was a net drag.

Imports contribute to GDP as a part of net exports: exports minus imports.

Smaller imports boost net exports. Imports made the biggest drop since 2022.
3/ What we’re seeing is a phenomenon called import compression: the balance was boosted by falling imports.

It’s a superficial improvement due accounting mechanics. The only growth is actually weakness.

We figured it out. But wait—how do they get import/export data? 😬
Read 12 tweets
Stephen Punwasi 🏚️📉🐈☃️ Profile picture
Nov 20
🇨🇦’s real estate is about to spiral faster than most realize.

The red is the estimated level of investor-owned units. A lot don’t have the cash & hoped to flip it before completion.

It gets crazier. Let’s talk about blanket appraisals.

<thread> 🧵👇
2/ first off, when you buy a pre-construction home in 🇨🇦 you don’t own a home—you own an assignment. The right to a home on completion.

You aren’t qualified in anyway way. You make the deposits until you have 20% down at occupancy, and then you need to provide cash or financing.
3/ Lenders will do up to 80% LTV, so you need at least 20% equity on the property.

If prices rise, you have extra equity by completion. If they fall, you need to top it up.

Here’s the fun part: Prices dropped over 20% in TO since peak, wiping out the deposit.
Read 11 tweets
Stephen Punwasi 🏚️📉🐈☃️ Profile picture
Oct 23
Pst… while the normies are sleeping—let’s talk about serial killers.

Specifically, the 70s boom & bust. Most experts attribute the disappearance of serial killers to improved social conditions.

What if the only thing that disappeared is the data? This gets wild.

<thread> 🧵👇 Image
2/ first rule of data literacy: what are we looking at?

This chart shows 🇺🇸 data from the Radford/FGCU, which defines a serial killer as someone who murders 2 or more in separate instances.

That definition broadens the label—even reclassifying infamous murderers like Ed Gein.
3/ Experts often attribute the rise to:
- Mobility: New highways let killers flee; victims were farther from home & community

- Post-war trauma: Returning vets passed trauma to their kids

- Anonymity: As people moved further from home, they knew fewer neighbors
Read 16 tweets
Stephen Punwasi 🏚️📉🐈☃️ Profile picture
Oct 9
🇨🇦: Canada Post is losing money.

The left thinks that’s okay. The right thinks it now needs to be sold off.

The elites & their politicians? They don’t want you to realize that Canada Post’s losses were manufactured so they could loot a public asset.

<thread> 🧵👇
2/ InnovaPost was Canada Post’s in house IT provider, handling key infrastructure like email and its shipping platform.

Brilliant. This allows internal transfer for the lowest cost, since any profits are returned.

It was sold to Deloitte in 2024. Obvs they must be suckers.
3/ Canada Post built SCI, a third-party logistics company (3LP) w/ synergistic operations. It was one of 🇨🇦’s largest 3PLs, essential ecommerce infrastructure.

“SCI has been a strong performer for the Canada Post Group of Companies over the years,” Canada Post’s CEO in 2024.
Read 7 tweets
Stephen Punwasi 🏚️📉🐈☃️ Profile picture
Jul 3
Have you noticed smart people are suddenly irrational—ignoring facts & embracing narrative?

It’s not your imagination—it’s a biological phenomenon exploited by leaders & we’re all vulnerable to it.

Let’s talk about amygdala flooding & neurobiological hijacking.

<thread> 🧵👇
2/ Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor executed for trying to kill Hitler, famously touched on this in his theory of stupidity.

Stumped by the normal people he knew suddenly becoming Nazis, he concluded they’re not evil—they’re stupid.

Stupidity is way worse than you think.
3/ to him , stupidity is surrendering one’s ability to think, making one incapable of self-reflection or moral judgment.

It’s not greed. People are so stressed they’re outsourcing thinking.

This is why facts have no impact—there’s no consideration.
Read 16 tweets
Stephen Punwasi 🏚️📉🐈☃️ Profile picture
Apr 23
🇨🇦’s wild these days.
- Money laundering capital of the world
- the global fentanyl “command & control center”
- home to transnational organized crime heads
- at least 1 in 7,800 residents are members of organized crimes.

How did this happen so fast?

<thread> 🧵👇
2/ first of all, most folks in 🇨🇦 don’t realize how bad things are yet, they’re just dealing with the consequences.

Soaring housing costs. Rising car thefts. Unaffordable housing, Overdoses in your hood. Violence in your streets.

All related.
3/ 🇨🇦’s home prices soared in the mid-2010s due to laundering.

Fentanyl proceeds were washed in casinos, then layered w/housing. It’s now called the Vancouver model.

Home prices surged since comps were skewed, & launderers WANT to pay more.

Dive into this later.
Read 11 tweets

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