Canada’s March To Corporatist Fascism I - Fintrac

I have been planning a series on Canadian fascism for a long time, and now events have far surpassed me.

I am often annoyed (sometimes mildly, often madly) by the news I read about the way the Canadian government and so-called “justice” system relates to white collar crime and corruption.

In the latest such episode, a Canadian bank colluded with a convicted felon to money launder a few million dollars. The bank was fined but not named.

A convicted felon attempted to move at least $12 million through a Canadian bank, which failed to report the transactions to authorities in a breach of anti-money-laundering law, new documents obtained by the Toronto Star and National Observer show.

For keeping the transactions secret, the bank, whose name has been removed from the documents, was fined $1.15 million — the first and only time a bank has been penalized for this kind of offence in Canada.

It committed the “very serious” offence of failing to report “a suspicious transaction related to the commission or attempted commission of a money laundering offence,” according to 109 pages of heavily censored documents obtained through an access to information request by the National Observer.

From early 2012 to the end of 2013, the unnamed bank processed 1,179 international electronic transfers of $10,000 or more from the mystery client, who used a “potential shell company” and operated out of an unnamed country associated with money laundering. It also accepted 45 cash deposits of $10,000 or more, all without ever reporting the transactions to Fintrac, Canada’s money laundering and terrorist financing enforcement agency, as required by law.

The vast number of unreported transactions is “shocking,” one financial expert said. Richard Leblanc, a professor of corporate governance at York University, said it pointed to the possibility of bank employees conspiring with the client.

“This is a remarkable failure of governance at a major financial institution,” Leblanc said. “It’s shocking that this would occur.”

Another bearer of corruption often disguised as incompetence is IT projects where the taxpayer is always sure to get fleeced: msn-canadaca

Sources / More info: tst-fintrac

Tdot Zamo.ca, mussolini, fascism, economics, banking, white collar, fintrac, financial crime, corruption (Tags)