The Royal Canadian Mountain Police are charging a 30-year-old BC resident for his role in a multi-million-dollar money laundering scheme involving illegal online cannabis sales.
In a press release Thursday, the police revealed that they had arrested Harry Seo of Burnaby on Dec. 30. He was supposed to appear in court on Friday in Vancouver, but his legal representation delayed the proceedings until the end of February.
His apprehension followed a lengthy and “complex” investigation into the criminal activity in British Columbia and Alberta. He is one of seven involved in the operation. The rest received conditional sentences ranging from 9-12 months last year and major fines up to C$155,000.
“By partnering with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) and the CRA, we collected a significant amount of evidence to demonstrate how this group laundered significant proceeds of crime earned from the sale of illegal cannabis,” the RCMP stated.
The individuals involved handled a total of C$47 million before their criminal activity was put to an end by authorities. The vast majority of this sum came in the form of e-transfers.
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Illicit online market still thrives
Despite being able to shutter this operation, there are still hundreds of illicit dispensary sites catering to Canadian customers.
A 2019 study from Deloitte Canada found that there were approximately 750 at the time. That number has potentially declined in recent years, but not by much.
“There has been little to no enforcement, whether that is law enforcement or through website owners and registrars,” a representative from the data analytics company Coeus told StratCann last fall. This organization specializes in examining illegal online activities of various sorts.
“If you took 700 websites down today, 450 would probably come back within 24 hours,” the Ontario-based firm’s representative, Adrian Cheek, added.
A Canadian Cannabis Survey completed in 2021 found that about 15 per cent of domestic weed consumers had bought product from an illicit online source that year.
rowan@mugglehead.com
