Experts say the discovery of $2 million sent to Canadians from a suspected money-laundering network designed to hide dirty Russian money highlights the weaknesses of a financial intelligence system with too many loopholes and not enough teeth.
International banking documents revealed this week 30 Canadian companies and individuals received dozens of payments between 2008 and 2013 from accounts in Cyprus and Lithuania.
The accounts are suspected to belong to an international web of companies created to obscure the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars connected to elaborate Russian tax frauds.
One expert from a financial intelligence watchdog says Canada is the ideal place to wash illicit funds, given how stable an environment is provided.
He says Canada needs to show more leadership in fighting a problem that plagues the economy by allowing proceeds of crime to infiltrate the country's balance sheets and real estate.
A 2016 report by the Financial Action Task Force, an international group that evaluates countries' financial intelligence efforts, highlighted several weaknesses in Canada's system, including not enough reporting of suspicious activity by real estate and legal professionals and too little transparency in who really owns corporations.
The report's authors also pointed out that Canadian authorities often don't investigate money-laundering cases with "complex corporate elements or foreign ownership."
