Here’s a short story about how Americans protect the integrity of the capital markets compared to Canadians, from a Canadian GenZ who’s at a big New York hedge fund. Background is 4 GenZs at a Canadian uni all end up in New York in financial services. Two started on Bay Street and then went to US on NAFTA permits. All are in capital markets and all at big name global institutions. While one is at a bank in investments, one is at a national stock exchange and other two are at funds, they go through the process of understanding prohibitions on insider

1. Thoughts on Brexit I heard this week from some of the Brits who funded / supported it: (a) those Brits still think it’s a good idea; (b) they have a WWII view that times will be tough but they will be victorious in the end separating from EU (literally, I was told this); (c) 2. it comes down to a long-long standing battle with France that no one can understand who is not British or French. In the interim, a person who heads a national science institute in the UK, said that their science funding was $0 now b/c EU funding for science in UK is gone, so

1. A few updates in the Fred Sharp and Cannabis Bro Avtar Dhillon alleged securities fraud cases, which involve a group of Vancouver people who are alleged to have run a US$1B fraud scheme with lawyers, accountants, and promoters pumping and dumping stock, using encrypted phones. 2. Mike Veldhuis, one of the defendants - I did some background vetting on him and coincidentally, know two people he did some deals with which was surprising to me. One is a lawyer - even more surprising as I never did pump and dump work, although many in Vancouver do.

A tiny thread about Canadian AML bank officers and politically exposed persons ("PEPs"). Banks (god knows why) decided in Canada that the competent way to ascertain if a person was a PEP was to give them a questionnaire and have them check a box "(y/n) as to the question: Are u a PEP? You might as well add a question: Are you a money launderer? In any event, they rely upon that questionnaire to prove they comply with the law and undertake due diligence. I heard the banks do this b/c they paid for a fat opinion that this was the meaning of due diligence.

1. In 2020, I asked 3 professionals in the Vancouver shell game capital markets how come the scams and pump and dumps are perpetual; how come regulators allow issuers to rent ceos and cfos as consultants who are ceos and cfos of five issuers; how come no one babysits fees to 2. consultants and whether they are qualified to advise an issuer to earn the fees; how come no one babysits Sedar; how come no one questions auditor notes that makes no sense and are factually inaccurate. Here’s what I was told - that the Vancouver capital markets isn’t about

Reading old testimony on global money laundering and secret offshore sketch islands to hide wealth; a bank expert testified to US govt: “first, we always move money into a country like Canada which, from the IRS point of view, is not suspicious.”

Basically, they know the bank in Canada, which is likely a foreign scheduled bank in Canada, won’t report the funnelling of tax evasion funds through Canada, to FINTRAC. It would be reporting themselves, as inter-bank transfer.

1. Once upon a time, a few men get together from Vancouver. They bring in a man from Oman, two from Jersey, one from Switzerland and one from the UK. They buy a shell from a car salesman in Vancouver and back it up into a little dead pubco. Magically, shares get issued in Panama. 2. The magic shares from Panama give the Vancouver guys control of the shell. Weirdly, addresses in Mexico are used for some shareholders (Hells Angels perhaps?). They hire a porn film business manager to manger the pubco. Fat consulting contracts are entered into. They wire