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The Fairbrook Crescent house is among 20 Lower Mainland properties valued at more than $43 million that were linked to those accused of using proceeds of crime to buy property and other assets. They were targets of E-Pirate and related police probes into allegations of drug trafficking, illegal gambling and money laundering, according to a Postmedia News analysis of hundreds of pages of court records and property documents.

Photo by Francis Georgian / PNG

The analysis shows the main players — those accused of running illegal gambling operations and money laundering — often put properties and other assets in the names of nominees, such as relatives, and also were quick to protect assets when they come to the attention of law enforcement officials.

For example, less than three weeks after Maxim Poon Wong was arrested with more than $200,000 in cash by Vancouver police investigating a cosmetics business that police alleged was a branch for an underground bank — he added Karen Wong to the title of a $2.8-million home on West 62nd Avenue in Vancouver.

The ownership change — for $1 and “natural love and affection” — took place on Oct. 14, 2015, according to B.C. Land Title Office records, 19 days after Wong was arrested on Sept. 25.

Assets are often put in family members’ names — even jointly — to make them harder to seize as proceeds-of-crime, experts say.

These findings come as increased scrutiny is being put on money laundering in B.C. and there are questions on what effect money laundering could be having on the Lower Mainland’s housing market that several years ago experienced rapid rises in prices.