A recently announced federal law enforcement agency dedicated to investigating financial crimes will take years to set up, and to be effective, the Ottawa-headquartered force will need to have a presence in places like B.C., say policing experts.<\/p>\n
The new Financial Crimes Agency will be allowed to create offices outside of its head office, under legislation introduced at the end of April,<\/a> but it\u2019s unclear if that will happen.<\/p>\n The new agency is meant to investigate things like cross-border money laundering, a hot-button issue in B.C. in the past decade and the subject of several government reports and inquiries.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t investigate this stuff from a distance,\u201d said Peter German, the author of two B.C. government reports on money laundering<\/a> and a former deputy commissioner of the RCMP.<\/p>\n Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s Liberal government has provided the stand-alone agency, which is to be separate from the RCMP, a budget of $353 million<\/a> over five years, and $82 million a year after that. There\u2019s also $46 million over five years and $11.5 million a year after that to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, and $20 million over five years and $1.5 million a year after that to the Department of Finance to support the new agency.<\/p>\n Policing observers and experts expect the agency to have about 250 personnel, about half of them investigating officers, with the rest support staff and civilian experts in areas such as accounting and finance.<\/p>\n German has significant concerns, saying just one major investigation could eat up all of the agency\u2019s resources, as it could involve physical surveillance, electronic surveillance, search warrants and interviews. \u201cYou need highly trained individuals, and you need a lot of them to do one of these files,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The only way you could this without establishing regional offices is if investigators from Ottawa move out here for anywhere from six to 18 months, said German.<\/p>\n It would have been a better idea to bolster the RCMP\u2019s ability to investigate financial crime, and provide this new money to them, he said.<\/p>\n The new agency has been provided the ability to use RCMP officers while it is established.<\/p>\n In response to Postmedia questions, the Department of Finance, which is heading the creation of the agency, did not say whether it would establish an office in B.C., and if it did, how many officers would staff it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be premature to speculate on the agency\u2019s regional footprint, staffing decisions, or potential service agreements with the RCMP. These matters will be determined by the future commissioner, who has yet to be appointed,\u201d said the department in an email from media relations officer Benoit Mayrand.<\/p>\n The B.C. government referred questions about the new agency\u2019s operations to the federal government.<\/p>\n In a written statement, the B.C. Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General said the province is taking time to understand the newly announced agency and how it will work with police in B.C.<\/p>\n \u201cThe province welcomes and thanks the federal government for stepping up with new measures dedicated to investigating serious and complex financial crimes ensuring law enforcement will be better equipped to trace criminal networks, disrupt the illicit drug trade, support investigations and hold those responsible to account,\u201d the ministry said in an email from public affairs officer Buzz Lanthier-Rogers.<\/p>\n Christian Leuprechct, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen\u2019s University, also said the new agency is not the best model.<\/p>\n He said he would have preferred the federal government build capacity of expertise in areas such as forensic accounting and in cybercrime, and hire lawyers and people who can manage and co-ordinate these very complex investigations, to support existing federal, provincial and local police forces.<\/p>\n Leuprecht, a co-editor of the 2023 book, Dirty Money: Financial Crime in Canada, said it\u2019s difficult to carry out financial crime investigations across the country from Ottawa.<\/p>\n Canada also needs experienced prosecutors in the area of financial crime, he said.<\/p>\n And taking away experienced financial crimes officers from the RCMP, even temporarily, simply reduces their already-stretched-thin resources, he noted.<\/p>\n The new agency \u201cis neither the most efficient nor most effective allocation of resources. It is not the fastest way to get from A to B,\u201d said Leuprecht.<\/p>\n Transparency International Canada said it welcomed steps to create the new agency. \u201cOnce established, the agency must co-ordinate closely with other enforcement and regulatory agencies across the country, and build on their efforts, if it is to achieve its potential,\u201d said Salvator Cusimano, the executive director of TI-Canada.<\/p>\n In the past decade, Postmedia\u2019s investigations have put a spotlight on money laundering.<\/p>\n Between 2017 and 2019, its investigations revealed that money-laundering prosecutions are rare and difficult<\/a> in B.C. and that criminals have used shell companies to launder tens-of-millions of dollars.<\/p>\n Another Postmedia investigation found at least $43 million in properties<\/a> were tied to B.C.\u2019s largest money-laundering case.<\/p>\n A Postmedia\u00a0analysis of 12 money-laundering cases\u00a0dating back nearly three decades involving $1.7 billion, found money is laundered in real estate<\/a> using a number of mechanisms, often with the help of shell companies and involving 20 countries and 30 banks.<\/p>\n In 2019, as part of one of his government reviews, German found that none of the RCMP officers in B.C. dedicated to fighting money laundering were investigating those types of crimes.<\/a><\/p>\n And in 2022, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen concluded his three-year inquiry into money laundering, finding there was no sustained effort<\/a> to investigate money laundering in British Columbia.<\/p>\n