VANCOUVER—One of Canada’s top international anti-money laundering experts says B.C.’s promised report on whether gangsters are funneling crime cash through local real estate will likely fail to discover the full extent of the current “crisis.”

That’s because the province’s consultant tasked with investigating the allegations, former civil servant Peter German, won’t be able to pry secret corporate records from law firms.

Lawyer-client privilege means that real estate transaction data will stay secret without a court order, according to lawyer Christine Duhaime, afinancial crime and anti-money laundering specialist with law offices in Toronto and Vancouver.

“In the real estate sector, many of the transactions are done through numbered companies or trusts,” she told StarMetro in a phone interview. “You’re not talking about a human person any more.”

German has delivered his first report to Attorney General David Eby with 48 recommendations on laundering in B.C. casinos, Eby told StarMetro.

But B.C. hasn’t released the report publicly yet as promised because it’s being vetted by law enforcement agencies to ensure it won’t “compromise any law enforcement investigations or release anyone’s personal information,” he said in an earlier phone interview. “Once that’s complete we’ll get that report out as soon as possible.”

Now German will turn his sights on possible laundering in the realty sector for a second phase of his investigation.

Eby said “the evidence is quite clear there are international connections” between housing, drug trafficking, and international crime.

“For a long time, a lot of people have been saying we need to know where a lot of the money in our real estate market is coming from,” he said. “Anyone who is naive enough to believe the money laundering problem we face in B.C. is somehow limited to casinos is incredibly wrong.”

Eby went to Ottawa last month to testify before a high-level committee, asking for more federal help to tackle the issue. While B.C. can increase regulation and oversight over real estate and other transactions, it’s a federal agency that tracks international cash flow, and the national RCMP that enforces such laws.

Duhaime said that is true, but urged Eby to not stop at his two commissioned reports. The public needs answers, and should look to Quebec if it wants to root out corruption.

“I’m a really strong proponent of, not another report, but of an actual commission on money laundering in B.C.,” she argued. “I think (German’s) reports will conclude that more investigation is needed. That suggests we should just have a public inquiry.

“If we don’t have that kind of cleansing in public, with sworn evidence, I don’t know there will be much of a restoration of public confidence for investment here.”

For Dermod Travis, executive director of Integrity B.C., Quebec’s Charbonneau commission of inquiry was a wake-up call as to how deeply entrenched corruption can become if unchecked.

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“On money laundering in B.C., all of these issues were not unknown to the government,” the former Montrealer told StarMetro in an earlier interview. “But one day they found out they couldn’t control it. Once it’s out of the barn, it’s out of the barn.

“The only way this is going to be resolved is through an inquiry where people can’t hide.”

David P. Ball is a Vancouver-based reporter covering democracy and politics. Email him or follow him on Twitter: @davidpball

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