As has been widely reported, the Commission of Inquiry Into Money Laundering in British Columbia, led by BC Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen, has released its long-awaited report into the scope and significant issues relating to money laundering in this Canadian province. As readers will know, this is the latest set of findings on money laundering and associated criminal activity in BC, presaged as it was by two reports by Dr. Peter German (as well as a couple of others) that authoritatively exposed what was going on.
Commissioned by BC Attorney General David Eby, the Cullen report is the result of 133 days of public hearings that heard the testimony of over 200 witnesses. And it is a blockbuster; Cullen estimates that the amount of money laundered through BC annually can be reasonably estimated to be in the billions, and that over successive years the growth of the problem was known to authorities, yet insufficient efforts were made to address it.
I will not try to summarize the report here, as it runs over 1800 pages. Even the list of Justice Cullen's 101 Recommendations, which you can find here, is 16 pages long. However, it is certain (or at least hoped!) that these findings will be influential in the formulation of policing and prosecutorial strategies regarding financial crime and money laundering for some time to come.
If you want to read a solid journalistic account of the historical backdrop, I can recommend Sam Cooper's book Wilful Blindness.
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