Vancouver mayor says false claims didn't harm councillor, who 'supported drug use' - thecanadianpressnews.ca
Vancouver mayor says false claims didn't harm councillor, who 'supported drug use'thecanadianpressnews.
Two whistleblowers on money laundering say they’re disappointed with the findings of the inquiry into the crime’s pervasiveness and possible ties to corruption in British Columbia.
The Cullen Commission’s final report, published Wednesday, delved into cash from organized crime being filtered through the province’s casinos, real estate industry and elsewhere.
While it concluded the B.C. government, police and federal anti-money laundering agency didn’t do enough to stop the crime, the 1,800-page report did not detect evidence of corruption. The commission identified “staggering” levels of money laundering, and what Cullen himself described as a “failure of will” to deal with it.
“People need to go to jail for this,” Fred Pinnock, former commander of the RCMP’s illegal gaming taskforce, told Global News.
“It’s been my hope that there would have been support for criminal investigations to result from this exercise. I don’t see that happening and I don’t see the bad actors that gave rise to this nightmare of money laundering being held accountable to the extent they should be.”
Pinnock ran B.C.’s Integrated Illegal Gambling Enforcement Team, tasked with policing illegal casinos, from 2005 until 2008. He testified at the commission hearings that he repeatedly expressed the need to extend the unit’s mandate into B.C. Lottery Corporation casinos, and made a business case for the unit to target organized crime in government casinos.
There was little interest in his idea, he said...
Vancouver mayor says false claims didn't harm councillor, who 'supported drug use'thecanadianpressnews.