VANCOUVER—The Canada Revenue Agency executed two search warrants in Vancouver on Thursday to try to find evidence of an alleged $77-million offshore tax-evasion case.

The CRA says 40 investigators uncovered a series of transactions in offshore tax havens that allegedly show non-residents did not pay tax on income they received from Canadian sources.

Investigators traced the connection between some of the Canadian and offshore entities by checking information leaked in the Panama Papers, according to a press release from the CRA. Criminal charges have not been laid in the case, and CRA declined to provide information about the location of the searches. Search warrants have not yet been filed at court registries.

The Panama Papers are a massive trove of documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca that were leaked in April 2016. They revealed secretive financial dealings through offshore tax havens, and showed how intermediaries like lawyers and banks helped wealthy people shield their money from tax authorities.

It is just one of 52 international and offshore tax-evasion cases under way, with five involving people named in the Panama Papers. Between 2012 and 2018, the CRA recovered $33 million after Canadian courts convicted 36 people who evaded federal taxes and had links to offshore money and other assets.

In February 2018, the CRA conducted — and publicized — simultaneous raids in West Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. They were the first searches conducted based on information from the Panama Papers.

In 2015, the CRA stepped up its audits of wealthy people and the complicated corporate structures they use to hold money. The agency has also been examining real estate activity more closely, and has identified the high-priced markets of Toronto and Vancouver as at high risk for tax evasion.

Between 2015 and 2018, CRA found $574 million in unpaid taxes related to real estate in Toronto and $310 million in Vancouver.

The B.C. government recently created a condo-flipping registry to track pre-sales of condos. CRA investigators found some buyers who flipped presale condos to be in “non-compliance” with tax law, and filed court applications to compel developers to give investigators information about the buyers.

B.C. is also the first province to propose a public landownership registry to reveal the true owners of real estate in the province. As recent reports from Transparency International showed, high-priced real estate in Vancouver and Toronto is regularly held in ways that conceal the ownership, raising the risk it could be used for money laundering or tax evasion.

With files from Marco Chown Oved

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