B.C. reaches forfeiture agreement in alleged $220-million-a-year money laundering scheme
Gordon Hoekstra
The Vancouver Sun
The province will keep more than $1.2 million in money, casino chips, gift cards and personal property, including jewelry, all of which was seized in a 2015 police raid.
The house once owned by Caixuan Qin on Burquitlam Drive in south Vancouver. Photo by Gerry Kahrmann /PNG
The province has reached a deal with one of the accused at the centre of B.C.’s biggest money laundering case that will put more than $1 million into B.C.’s coffers.
The agreement with Caixuan Qin, who is accused of helping to run an underground bank in Richmond that allegedly laundered as much as $220 million a year, is outlined in a “consent order” signed by both parties filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Nov. 30.
The province will keep more than $1.2 million in money, casino chips, gift cards and personal property, including jewelry, all of which was seized in a 2015 police raid. The province will also keep a little less than half of the proceeds of $192,725 from the sale of a home that had been owned by Qin in Vancouver.
Qin will keep the remaining portion of the proceeds of the heavily mortgaged south Vancouver home that was sold for $1.88 million.
The consent order states the money to the province will be paid to the Ministry of Finance.
“The action is otherwise dismissed,” says the order.
The B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office launched the case in 2018 to have the assets forfeited after a criminal case against Qin and her spouse Jian Jun Zhu was dropped. Zhu was shot and killed in 2020.
Caixuan Qin. PNG
In 2018, Qin and Zhu were accused of operating an underground bank in Richmond, named Silver International, that allegedly laundered as much as $220 million a year, largely in drug trafficking money, according to earlier court filings.
The pair had denied any wrongdoing and said that search and seizures by police violated their Charter rights.
More than $2 million in cash was seized by police in the 2015 raids, which included warranted searches at the underground bank in Richmond, as well as at Qin’s residence in south Vancouver.
The cash was going to be returned to Qin and Zhu following a court ruling in the wake of the collapse of the criminal case, but a 2019 B.C. Court of Appeal decision overturned the lower court decision.
It meant the money continued to be held under a freeze order pending the outcome of the civil forfeiture case.
It is not clear what has happened to the remaining $800,000 or so that was seized during the raid.
The B.C. Ministry of Public Safety, which has responsibility for the civil forfeiture office, directed questions about what happened to the remainder of the money to the Canada Revenue Agency. The provincial officials did not provide any explanation as to what interest or connection the CRA had to the money. The CRA was not a party in the B.C. civil forfeiture suit.
Jian Jun Zhu. Photo by TBA /PNG
The CRA did not immediately respond Tuesday afternoon to questions about the approximately $800,000 in remaining cash.
In 2019, Qin had l aunched a federal court challenge to quash a CRA order for six banks to produce financial information.
Qin initiated the court action in relation to an investigation into potential criminal tax offences committed by herself and others linked to Silver International, according to the Federal Court of Canada filing.
Zhu was killed on Sept. 18, 2020 in a brazen shooting while he dined at a Richmond restaurant with Paul King Jin, also an alleged money launderer. Jin was injured in the targeted shooting but survived.
A 23-year-old man was recently charged in the killing of Zhu.
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