Mar 10, 2011 - 8:06 AM

http://www.yorkregion.com/news/article/965125--billions-in-dirty-money-laundered-in-canada

You may be asked some pointed questions the next time you move large sums of cash around as money laundering in Canada becomes more sophisticated, a York Region conference heard this week.

Money laundering is a crime evolving through e-commerce websites and one that often involves billions of dollars of dirty money being chanelled through Canada, the RCMP said.

And it’s happening more often, financial crimes experts warn.

Although the crime rate has dropped 10 years running, narcotics offences and proceeds of crime have been increasing, said Matthew McGuire, a financial crime director of Williams McGuire, a financial crime consulting firm in Markham.

About three-quarters of the money laundered in this country is the result of the illegal drug trade, he said.

Money laundering is the process of transforming money made through criminal activity into clean money that has a criminal origin difficult to trace, according to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada — Canada’s financial intelligence agency.

Depositing small amounts of money in several accounts, then having people use drug money to buy items, such as cars, is one of the so-called tricks of the trade, forensic accountant Barry Hawn told the conference.

Canada, unlike the United States, does not have a national threat assessment for money laundering that financial institutions could use to inform themselves of risk and how to control that risk, he added.

Financial institutions keep a money laundering risk score.

But you may often encounter the checks and balances in place to clamp down on money laundering and financial crime, Mr. McGuire said Tuesday, during the first stop of a cross-country money laundering risk tour his company co-produced.

For example, financial transactions of $10,000 or more must be reported.

As a consumer, you may be asked from where your money came, where it’s going and why.

“This is the new reality,” Mr. McGuire said. “If your transactions are outside of the normal range for somebody of your occupation, there might be even more scrutiny,” he cautioned.”

Newer payment methods, such as popular e-commerce websites used for the buying and selling of online goods, are becoming more popular to launder funds, he noted.

Money laundering examples in York Region have involved large amounts of cash, obtained through illegal activity, such as drug trafficking, York fraud investigator Det.-Sgt. Mike Elliott said.

In an effort to hide the dirty money and retrieve it later, criminals may spread cash deposits through several accounts — some of which may involve false names or numbered companies — leaving investigators to determine who is responsible for an account, police said.

York Regional Police fraud investigators charged a man with money laundering in January. However, last month police said they were searching for another suspect wanted in connection with the same incident.

The incident occurred in October, when police say a man walked into a Richmond Hill TD Canada Trust, impersonated a customer and withdrew more than $325,000 in bank drafts from another person’s account.

A false name was then used to launder that money, according to police.

When investigators find evidence of money laundering, they often discover there has been a lot of thought put into the scheme, he added.

“It’s one of those crimes that is nuanced,” Det.-Sgt. Elliott said. “(Criminal groups) have all day to figure this out.”