Bilong Oyau braces against the harsh wind and drifting snowflakes of his first Canadian winter, more than 14,000 kilometres from the lush Malaysian rainforest he calls home. Face scrunched beneath a scarf, Oyau’s quest for justice has brought him to downtown Toronto — 35 C colder than his village — to pursue allegations of financial crimes against an Ontario real estate company.

In a rare court proceeding Monday, lawyers for the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), a Swiss NGO that works to conserve tropical rainforests, will ask for sensitive financial records from three major banks and an accounting firm. BMF and the Malaysian activists allege Sakto Corp., based in Ottawa, may have amassed its fortune in part by laundering money from corruption in the Malaysian timber industry.

“We have nothing to lose except money,” said the executive director of BMF, Lukas Straumann.

Oyau is the headman of the village of Long Sait, nestled deep in the Sarawak jungle. The province, home to some of the richest rainforest in the world, lies just above the equator on the island of Borneo.

The community of Long Sait fought rapidly encroaching logging with blockades and protests that sent them to prison, but they’ve been lucky — their rainforest is among the estimated 10 per cent of rainforest in Sarawak that hasn’t been cut down.

“Before there was logging, life was wonderful,” Oyau said through a translator.

“After logging . . . the trees are gone and the animals disappeared and the rivers are polluted.”

Oyau and a group of fellow activists say the deforestation has destroyed Indigenous groups’ way of life in Sarawak, evicting them from their ancestral homes. Though the logging industry has been lucrative, none of that wealth has trickled down to the area’s inhabitants.

Much of the deforestation happened under Abdul Taib Mahmud, a long-serving, powerful politician, currently the governor of Sarawak.

Taib Mahmud’s daughter, Jamilah Taib Murray, founded Sakto in 1983 while she was in her early 20s, using money given to her by her father. Taib Murray has lived in Ottawa since she was a teenager.

Despite continuous losses in its first years of operation, Sakto continued to grow, making tens of millions of dollars worth of investments in Ottawa. It’s currently valued at $250 million, according to BMF.

The BMF alleges Sakto is among a web of international companies used to launder the proceeds of corruption from the logging industry in Sarawak.

Sakto and Taib Murray have continuously denied the allegations, which haven’t been proven in court. “This application is simply the latest variant in a long string of unsuccessful efforts,” wrote Sakto’s lawyers in a filing late last month.

On Monday, BMF will ask the court to order the Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Manulife Financial and Deloitte to release detailed financial records related to Sakto.

Straumann says BMF hopes to use the documents, if released, to pursue private prosecution — a scarcely used type of criminal proceeding that can be started by a private citizen — against Sakto for corruption.

“There is a money trail coming straight to Canada,” said Harrison Ngau, a former Malaysian MP from Sarawak, part of the group in Toronto.

Canada is quietly emerging as a popular destination for global elite looking to hide money, a Toronto Star/CBC investigation found last year.

In court filings, RBC, TD, Manulife and Deloitte have said BMF hasn’t presented enough evidence to prove anything criminal has taken place, and the release of the documents would raise privacy concerns.

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Though the case was initially sealed, a judge ruled to make it public in September.

“If the plaintiffs’evidence is correct, there may be very significant criminal misconduct being committed here in aid of corrupt foreign official(s),” wrote Ontario Superior Court Justice F.L. Meyers.

“There may be no one else here who is interested in uncovering the truth whether it has to do with criminality here, corruption abroad that Canadians are facilitating, or deforestation and destruction of Indigenous habitat and culture in Malaysia.”

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