VANCOUVER—British Columbia’s attorney general is troubled by a report that finds there are no federal Mounties dedicated to money-laundering investigations in the province.

David Eby says that despite two years of headlines declaring that organized crime groups are laundering billions in B.C., the only dedicated RCMP presence is a provincially funded team fighting the crime in casinos.

“I think that any British Columbian who has been paying attention — and frankly any Canadian who has been paying attention to the problem we face in this province — will be incredibly surprised to hear this news,” Eby told reporters during a press conference Monday.

The information comes in the release of one chapter of a money-laundering report conducted by Peter German. The former RCMP deputy commissioner was appointed by Eby last fall to review the use of illicit money in B.C. real estate, horse racing and luxury vehicle sales.

German says his review found 26 federally funded positions on the RCMP’s money-laundering team in B.C., but when he asked for more detail from the RCMP on those positions, he was told only 11 were actually staffed.

The number fell further, to just five, when the number of officers away due to training, illness or other reasons were accounted for. When German asked what those five officers are working on, he was told they refer cases to B.C.’s civil forfeiture office, a legal process that requires a much lower standard of proof and is focused on recovering property connected to unlawful activity.

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In other words, other than the provincial casino unit, B.C. does not have one police officer dedicated to criminal money-laundering investigations that would lead to a prosecution.

Experts in money laundering say they knew the area was under-resourced but find the most recent revelation stunning.

“It’s something that never should have happened, but I knew it had,” said Garry Clement, a former RCMP officer who served on the force for 30 years and retired as the national director of the force’s proceeds-of-crime unit. He still works in the field as a private investigator.

“What we’ve allowed is a lot of organized crime groups to entrench themselves deeper into Canada.”

Christine Duhaime, a lawyer who specializes in financial crime and is an anti-money-laundering specialist, said the enormous gap revealed by German’s report may necessitate going back over old cases to see what was missed.

“The activity didn’t stop, so now I think we have a situation where we have to take an accounting of how many referrals were there to the RCMP, what are these investigations looking like, what do we do with them, which ones are we going to investigate,” Duhaime said.

“And then there are the ones that are newly coming in that we have to address.”

Given the backlog, Duhaime suggested B.C. doesn’t need 26 federal RCMP officers devoted to financial crime — it potentially needs twice that number to keep up with the past and present caseload.

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Clement said a previous model that worked well, and resulted in successful prosecutions, involved integrated units made up of federal RCMP officers, provincial and municipal police officers, federal prosecutors and customs officers all working together. The model went by the wayside after 2003, Clement said.

In his report, German pinpointed 2012 as another pivotal year when funding and focus on money-laundering investigations decreased.

“The increased resources focused on organized crime and terrorism after 2012 led to a dramatic decrease in commercial crime and proceeds-of-crime enforcement within B.C.,” German wrote.

“Many financial-crime specialists became generalists on the organized-crime teams, and many others retired or moved on to other roles within the RCMP.”

Duhaime said the federal prosecution service has often faced questions from parliamentary committees about why Canada has fewer money-laundering prosecutions than other countries.

“They often say prosecuting money laundering is complex, it’s really complicated law,” Duhaime said.

“It’s not really — but no matter whether it’s complicated or not, we now know we’re lacking resources.”

Eby is calling on the federal government to devote more officers and resources to fighting the problem. The 2019 federal budget earmarked more cash to investigate and enforce money-laundering cases, and Eby has argued that the majority of that funding should be directed toward B.C.

Bill Blair, the federal minister in charge of organized crime reduction, said in an emailed statement that his government has committed more funding to the problem and plans to create a multi-agency task force and a centre of excellence to combat financial crime.

“This includes enhanced outreach and examinations in the real-estate and casino sectors with a particular focus of British Columbia. I continue to collaborate with both David Eby and Dr. Peter German about how to reduce instances of money laundering across British Columbia and Canada,” Blair said.

With files from Canadian Press

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