Thread by @AmazingZoltan

Canada clearly has a money laundering problem.

A 🧵

You can’t just walk into a bank and deposit cartel profits. Unless it's a Canadian bank, apparently.

1/ An unelected banker is going to become prime minister of Canada apparently without being forced to answer a single critical question.

Alas, there's no better time than now, I surmise, to start asking questions about Canadian money laundering on his behalf.

2/ Ever wondered how some people at the roulette wheel have bottomless pockets?

Or why are there so many empty condo buildings amidst a generational housing crisis?

The answer to both of your questions is probably "money laundering" and "money laundering."

3/ Money laundering is the art of making dirty cash look clean. It's considered one of the funner parts of crime, largely because those who help launder money aren’t scary cartel hitmen with face tattoos.

They’re bankers, real estate developers, and politicians playing cards.

4/ The best part of money laundering—aside from the gambling and speculative investing (read: also gambling)—is banks get fined, but no one gets arrested.

Meanwhile, anti-Trudeau protestors and the guy on the street selling a few grams get years in prison. Funny how that works.

5/ Except in this case, someone was arrested. Actually, a bunch of people were arrested.

And they all worked for a Canadian bank called “TD.”

Everything you ever needed to know about money laundering, can be gleaned from this one sensational and extraordinary cautionary tale.

6/ This is the story of when Toronto-Dominion met “David."

7/ This is “David.”

Take a close look at this picture.

Not at David, whose face is obscured by grainy camera footage and a K-95 mask, but at what David is depositing:

It's a mountain of cash—over $300K in cash bundled in $20 bills (the preferred denomination for launderers).

8/ It's an almost difficult picture to believe until you realize money laundering wasn't illegal in Canada until 1989.

And if that wasn't shocking enough, it wasn't illegal in the U.S. until 1986.

Point being: this isn't a crime either country has taken seriously for very long.

9/ That brings us back to David and TD.

Six years before his arrest, David embarked on the incredibly stupid venture of laundering mountains of cash generated from the sale of deadly fentanyl—"helping" to kill tens of thousands of Americans, Canadians, and countless others.

10/ David (real name: Da Ying Sze) was a Chinese national living in Queens, NY who helped orchestrate a five-year $653 million laundering scheme from the Tri State region, laundering narcotics proceeds with help from U.S. bank staff. Yes, you read that correctly: U.S. bank staff.

11/ indeed Sze leveraged not Canadian, but American, frontline employees at financial institutions including, but not limited to, TD Bank for over five years—processing $474 million in illicit cash, often from fentanyl sales, through branches in multiple states (not provinces).

12/ And how much did it cost David to bribe these U.S. born front-line bankers to facilitate laundering nearly $1 billion in death merchant fentanyl proceeds?

Just $57,000 in "gift cards" apparently.

13/ So where does Canada come into play here? Well, it does and doesn't it, really. Yes, TD is a Canadian bank, and now reputed for poor laundering oversight.

However, there's no direct evidence "David" Da Yeng Sze had any interactions with Canada or Canadian bankers whatsoever.

14/ There is simply no direct evidence in the available public records or legal documents from the case United States v. Da Ying Sze showing Sze had any personal interactions with Canada at all—such as traveling there, residing there, or conducting any activities in the country.

15/ Sze wasn't just depositing into TD, either. He owned more than a dozen U.S.-owned bank accounts, tok.

And again, his activities, as outlined in legal proceedings, primarily took place in the U.S.—specifically in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania between 2016 and 2021.

16/ I don't think anyone will contest that TD's money laundering safeguards were insufficient.

"A picture tells a thousand words," as the saying goes, and this picture of David depositing more cash than the teller wicket can handle says more than required.

17/ However, blaming an entire country (in this case, Canada) for the reckless and irresponsible behavior of some reckless, irresponsible and greedy U.S. bank tellers in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania is as foolish as blaming Donald Trump for a KFC grease fire in Winnipeg.