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On May 26, a West Vancouver lawyer was found guilty of professional misconduct by a Law Society of B.C. disciplinary panel for allowing $26 million from unknown sources to flow through his trust account.

The panel found the lawyer ignored “a sea of red flags” and never asked the source of funds or where they were deployed. He admitted there was “risk involved” so he charged a tenth of one per cent of the amount, but did no legal work for the client.

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This is how “money laundering” or “terrorist financing” can be easily accomplished in Canada. Lawyer’s trust accounts can be used to bypass the legal scrutiny of banks and of regulators, tax officials, or law enforcement agencies.

Canada has become a secrecy haven, and a leaky one at that

In Australia and Britain lawyers cannot do this. But in Canada this is a gigantic loophole and is the reason why Canada recently received a failing mark from the world’s watchdog into money laundering and terrorist financing — the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) launched by the G7 and United Nations.