Category: Money Laundering

Law Society of Ontario calls for input into money laundering rules… Foxes designing hen house security

Money Laundering needs specialists

Lawyers are key to successful money laundering. That’s why the rules shouldn’t be left up to them.

During his acceptance speech as the co-winner of the 2015 Allard Prize for International Integrity, journalist Rafael Marques de Morais said “(unethical) Lawyers are servants in the architecture of corruption.”

Indeed they are. Lawyers are very necessary servants in the architecture of corruption for without lawyers willing to assist their valued clients, money laundering would be much more difficult for organized crime, crooked politicians, cheating corporations and others so inclinded to wash and conceal money here in Canada or offshore.

With Canadian banks and other named businesses having to report to the government large cash transactions (deposits or withdrawals over $10,000 cash) and also suspicious transactions – lawyers are the go-to people for weaseling around the laws because they are largely exempt from the reporting rules and constraints of non-lawyers. Plus, lawyers have a vast array of creative tools and strategies available – not to mention an international brotherhood that is experienced in working around inconvenient laws.

After 9/11, Canadian lawyers fought hard to keep from being more closely regulated and scrutinized over the issue of money transfers. They succeeded for a time, but the pressure is on again.

“The Law Society ‘solution’ for preventing money laundering is to rely entirely upon the integrity of individual lawyers – with no accounting or oversight by the law society or anyone else unless a complaint is made. Given that those involved in money laundering would never complain to the law society, that wraps things up quite nicely.”

Law Society of Ontario calls for input into money laundering rules

Canadian lawyers admit they are in fear of “the possibility of a renewed effort by the federal government to extend the PCMLTFA (Proceeds of Crime – Money Laundering – and Terrorist Financing Act) to members of the legal profession.” (See page 2 of the Law Society of Ontario’s Call for Input – download 1mb pdf here.)

As a result, the law societies across Canada have banded together with the Federation of Law Societies of Canada to present a little dog and pony show for the public and the legislators (who are primarily legal profession club members themselves.) The ‘club’ created a ‘Professional Regulation Committee’ and is calling for input from lawyers to the proposed amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering Rules.

A few minor changes coupled with a public relations campaign should do the trick… anything to stave off effective regulations that would cramp the profession’s ability to creatively serve the needs of their big-paying clients that they don’t want anyone to look at too closely.

You will note how the LSO proposal deals with transfers of cash, identifying and verifying clients and the use of lawyer’s trust accounts. A closer read shows that the proposed changes still leave lots of leeway and discretion to individual money-laundering lawyers. The money laundering toolbox is still intact with private mortgages, property transfers, offshore corporations and lots more tools still viable as lawyers’ secret conduits for tainted money.

Focus on Cash is a red herring.

The focus upon cash is a red herring for Canadian lawyers. Most of the money-laundering lawyers in Canada are not involved with large cash transactions through their own hands. By the time money arrives in their law firm accounts, it is coming through banks and from other lawyers in the form of documented transfers, real estate sales to apparent arms length parties and staged business dealings that have just enough appearance of legitimacy to protect the involved lawyers and law firms.

A Global Witness undercover investigation showed that 25% of New York lawyers would money-launder for strangers walking in off the streets. That was for strangers, not valued and known clients. Do we think that proportion of crooked lawyers is any different in Toronto, London or Barbados?

LSO Treasurer Paul Schabas (left) covered up fraud and money-laundering indicators for corrupt lawyer Gerald Ranking.

Law Society of Ontario Treasurer Paul Schabas knew that lawyer Gerald Ranking fraudulently used a fake business entity in Ontario courts, and that Ranking received a million dollars in a trust account for this phony purported client.

Intruding into this Law Society of Ontario dog and pony show are some serious facts that destroy the law society’s credibility to deal with apparent money-laundering by legal club member lawyers.

For instance, Law Society of Ontario Treasurer Paul Schabas was co-counsel with corrupt Fasken lawyer Gerald L. Ranking on a civil case where Ranking went wild with criminal misconduct. Schabas at the time was a bencher and a member of the law society’s discipline committee. (See ‘Paul Schabas and Canada’s Corrupt Bay Street Lawyers‘ for details and supporting court exhibits.)

What did Paul Schabas do when he learned that Gerald Ranking’s purported client in a civil case was actually a non-existent fictional creation?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch.

What did Law Society of Ontario bencher Paul Schabas do when he learned that Gerald Ranking had received about a million dollars in a trust account for his ficticious non-existent client?

Paul Schabas and his law society knew that lawyer Gerald Ranking of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP’s Toronto office fraudulently claimed that his purported client was a registered Barbados business – when in fact the ‘company’ was a phony non-entity conjured up to deflect liability from Ranking’s actual clients. Schabas and the law society also knew that Ranking received over a million dollars court costs payments in the name of the phony ‘company’ that Ranking knew didn’t really exist – a badge of money laundering.

What did Paul Schabas do when he knew that the million dollars could not possibly be deposited to the credit of the fake ‘business’ that the court awarded it to?

Nothing.

So you see… Law Society Treasurer Paul Shabas and the Law Society of Ontario cannot be trusted to administer, investigate and discipline lawyers who violate anti-money laundering rules, including the ‘know your client’ provisions.

And that was just one case. Here’s a few hundred more…

According to the Toronto Star’s Broken Trust investigation, in the last few years the Law Society of Ontario covered up and whitewashed hundreds of crimes by lawyers who committed criminal offences against their clients.

And now the Law Society of Ontario is proposing minor changes to the anti-money-laundering rules that will do little to stem the problem of money-laundering lawyers – the “servants in the architecture of corruption.”

It is time to bring Canada’s legal profession into compliance with modern standards of transparency, independent oversight and external accountability.

Retired RCMP Inspector William Majcher swears affidavit about corrupt Canadian lawyers and judges

Retired RCMP Inspector William Majcher

Affidavit reveals deep-rooted corruption of lawyers and judges in British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario

In 2002, it was revealed that William Majcher was a deep-cover RCMP police officer working against the dangerous Medellin Drug Cartel by targeting money-laundering operations in Canada.

“The Medellin Cartel, naturally, put out a contract to murder RCMP undercover officer William Majcher.”

For three years Majcher had worked undercover as a Futures and Options Commodity Trader primarily based on the floor of the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange. He took down disgraced Ontario lawyer Simon Rosenfeld and others for drug cartel money laundering, including Mark Valentine of the now-defunct Toronto-based brokerage firm Thomson Kernaghan & Co. Ltd..

Then in 2005, the RCMP removed Inspector Majcher from command of the Vancouver-based Integrated Market Enforcement Teams (IMET) – apparently because he sought nomination as a future candidate for the Conservative party. And because – much worse – in the news media Majcher alleged that the Crown prosecutors would not proceed with criminal charges against several high-profile individuals, and he hoped he could be more effective in politics than he had been in policing.

In other words – in 2005, RCMP Inspector William Majcher alleged corruption in the legal system and the system turned on him like a pack of wolves. What a surprise!

Flash forward to July 19, 2017 and William Majcher swore an affidavit in the Supreme Court of Canada civil case: Angleland Holdings Inc., Nederland Holdings Inc., John English, Paradise Beach Resorts Inc. and Pacific Rim resort vs Gergory N. Harney Law Corporation et al.

Every Canadian should read William Majcher’s affidavit and carefully consider the implications of what happens when the legal profession and justice system are allowed to police themselves with zero independent oversight and zero external accountability.

“During the course of my employment with the RCMP while working undercover or in handling criminal informants, I became tasked with knowlege and evidence of payoffs, bribery and case fixing that included judges, lawyers and court registry staff in various parts of Canada.”

If you read nothing else today, download and read William Majcher’s affidavit (720kb pdf)

UPDATED: July 21, 2023 – William Majcher Affidavit OCRd Optical Character Recognition

Then read the case of the John English family – that Majcher swore his affidavit in support of.

Former OPP boss Julian Fantino

Another Senior Canadian Police Officer alleges corruption by judge, lawyers & police.

Former Cabinet Minister and Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police Julian Fantino recently swore an affidavit containing bombshell allegations of corruption by an Ontario Federal Court Justice, several lawyers and an OPP Detective Sergeant under his command at the time.

Toronto Star Article: Ex-federal cabinet minister Julian Fantino takes aim at judge, cops, lawyers. 

Fantino Affidavit Summary and Court Exhibits.

“Our justice system is self-destructing before our eyes because too many lawyers, judges and elected / appointed government officials place their profession, friends, cartels and profits before the rule of law.”

Notice to readers, including Persons and Entities mentoned in articles

As always, if anyone disagrees with anything published at DonaldBest.CA or wishes to provide a public response or comment, please contact me at [email protected] and I will publish your writing with equal prominence. Comments left on articles are moderated about once a day. Or, of course, you can sue me and serve my lawyer Paul Slansky. You can find Mr. Slansky’s information here.

Photos have been included to put context to the article. Their use is the same as with other Canadian news outlets.

Readers are also encouraged to thoroughly study all the evidence available here at DonaldBest.CA, to perform independent research on the Internet and elsewhere, to consider all sides and to make up their own minds as to the events reported on DonaldBest.CA.

Donald Best
Barrie, Ontario, Canada

British lawyer jailed four and a half years for fabricating evidence. Three corrupt Canadian Bay Street lawyers get pass for same crime.

Same crime – different outcomes for corrupt lawyers in England and Canada.

Jailed lawyer Diljit Bachada

British solicitor Diljit Bachada fabricated evidence and placed false documents before the court in a civil dispute. She was caught when it was found that her documents contained a copyright notice that didn’t come into existence until six months after the date of the forged documents. (Law Society Gazette: Solicitor jailed for falsifying legal documents)

As a result, Bachada will spend the next four and a half years as a guest of Her Majesty’s Prisons. A second solicitor, Tharinjit Biring, assisted by providing a false witness statement and will spend eighteen months in prison.

In Canada though, Ontario’s Law Society of Upper Canada covered up and whitewashed hundreds of crimes by lawyers who committed criminal offences against their clients – according to the Toronto Star’s Broken Trust investigation.

In my own case, three corrupt Bay Street lawyers fabricated evidence and committed other criminal offences – yet the Law Society of Upper Canada, the legal profession and the courts gave them a pass.

The Law Society of Upper Canada is an exclusive club, and once you’re in it the rule of law doesn’t always apply. It just wouldn’t do to send senior members of the club to jail – even if an innocent man must go to prison instead.

Corrupt Ontario lawyers Sebastien Kwidzinski, Gerald Ranking & Lorne Silver lied to the courts.

The three corrupt Bay Street lawyers in my case are:

On November 17, 2009, Ranking, Silver and Kwidzinski crafted a false ‘Statement for the Record’ of a telephone call they had with me, Donald Best. They falsely told a judge in writing and then orally in court that I had informed them during the call that I did receive a certain court order. In fact I had told them many times that I had not received the court order and they cross-examined me on this point.

The corrupt lawyers did not know that I was in Asia and had secretly recorded the phone call which proved they lied to me in the call and to the judge. Further, later evidence showed that Ranking and his secretary lied to the court about sending me the court order via courier.

Further, Ranking and Kwidzinski’s purported ‘Barbados registered’ client was in fact a phony, non-entity which had been fraudulently created for the purpose of deflecting liability from their real client. Ranking was of course never able to present registration documents for his phony client. In January 2013 he was again caught red-handed filing fraudulent documents intended to legitimize his non-existent client some three years after the case had ended.

Then there is the fact that Gerald Ranking and Fasken Martineau law firm received over a million dollars in settlement and court costs which could not have been transferred to their non-existent client. That, my friends, is a badge of fraud and money-laundering.

Oh… and did I mention that Ranking and Kwidzinski illegally hired a corrupt Ontario Provincial Police officer to perform an illegal investigation for them? It’s called bribery of a peace officer under the Criminal Code of Canada.

Yes, the Law Society of Upper Canada and the courts were and are well aware of all of this – but the Bay Street lawyers are members of The Club, and rule of law doesn’t apply to them.

Notice to readers, including Persons and Entities mentoned in this article

As always, if anyone disagrees with anything published at DonaldBest.CA or wishes to provide a public response or comment, please contact me at [email protected] and I will publish your writing with equal prominence. Comments left on articles are moderated at least once a day. Or, of course, you can sue me and serve my lawyer Paul Slansky. You can find Mr. Slansky’s information here.

Photos have been included to put context to the article. Their use is the same as with other Canadian news outlets.

Donald Best
Barrie, Ontario, Canada

* Thanks to a loyal reader who informed me of the jailed British lawyers.

 

What Bill Browder didn’t know about Paul Schabas and Canada’s corrupt Bay Street lawyers

 

Cowardice and lack of Integrity at Ontario’s Law Society.

LSUC Treasurer Paul Schabas

Last week at the Cambridge Lectures, Hermitage Capital CEO and author Bill Browder spoke to a capacity crowd of top legal minds including Canada’s Chief Justice, the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin.

But while Browder kept the audience on the edge of their seats with true stories of corruption and murder in Putin’s Russia, he didn’t know that the moderator beside him – the leader of Ontario’s Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC), Paul Schabas – continues to whitewash corruption and criminal acts by members of Ontario’s Bay Street legal cabal.

Without courage, integrity means little

Bill Browder was client and friend of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky; an honest and courageous law firm auditor who was falsely arrested after he exposed a corrupt scheme to steal hundreds of millions of dollars in Russian tax revenues. When Sergei refused to cower and retract his evidence, he was held without charges for almost a year, tortured and finally beaten to death in solitary confinement by Putin’s thugs.

Browder documented that story of the corrupt Russian justice system in his best-selling book Red Notice. His lobbying brought forth the USA’s Magnitsky Act that authorizes sanctions against the involved Russians, including the crooked police and justice officials who are servants in the architecture of corruption.

Now Browder and his family are also paying the price that comes from courageously standing against corruption. They are targets of death threats, surveillance operations, kidnapping plots and a well-financed media smear-campaign against Browder and his murdered lawyer.

“Bill Browder did not know that the moderator who introduced him, Paul Schabas, doesn’t have the integrity or courage to hold corrupt Bay Street lawyers accountable. By his continued silence, Paul Schabas facilitates corruption and protects rogue members of Ontario’s legal elites.”

Bill Browder with photo of his murdered lawyer Sergei Magnitsky*

Canadians don’t have to go to Russia to find corruption

Threats to rape and murder witnesses (1,2), falsifying evidence (3,4,11), lawyers bribing police (5,6,7), putting an innocent man in prison (3,4,11), and protecting the elites against charges of money-laundering (8,9,10) and other crimes doesn’t just happen in Russia: it happens in Canada as well.

And nobody knows that better than Toronto lawyer Paul Schabas, the current Treasurer of Ontario’s Law Society of Upper Canada.

In his capacity as a lawyer, as a law society bencher and finally as LSUC Treasurer, Schabas knew of and received every piece of evidence in the Nelson Barbados and Donald Best civil cases where three corrupt Bay Street lawyers (Lorne Silver, Gerald Ranking and Sebastien Kwidzinski) were caught red-handed fabricating evidence and lying to the court to imprison an innocent man.

Paul Schabas also was aware of the hundreds of anonymous internet threats against witnesses in the Nelson Barbados case – including threats to rape and murder the victims of a massive US$100 million dollar fraud. Schabas and his law society received solid forensic evidence that many of the anonymous internet threats against witnesses originated from the computer network at Toronto’s Miller Thomson LLP law firm. (1,2)

Schabas and the Law Society of Upper Canada ignored anonymous threats against witnesses proven to be emanating from Bay Street law firm Miller Thomson LLP

Paul Schabas and his law society also knew that lawyer Gerald Ranking of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP’s Toronto office fraudulently claimed that his purported client was a registered Barbados business – when in fact the ‘company’ was a phony non-entity conjured up to deflect liability from Ranking’s actual clients. Schabas and the law society also knew that Ranking received over a million dollars court costs payments in the name of the phony ‘company’ that Ranking knew didn’t really exist – a badge of money laundering. (8,9,10)

Paul Schabas and the law society knew that lawyers Sebastien Kwidzinski and Gerald Ranking illegally paid a corrupt Ontario Provincial Police detective sergeant, James ‘Jim’ Van Allen, to work for them illegally on the side as an unlicensed private investigator, using police resources to gather evidence for their clients in a private civil case. (5,6,7)

Senior Ontario lawyers Gerald Ranking (center), Lorne Silver (right) and junior Sebastien Kwidzinski (left) lied to the courts.

Paul Schabas and the Law Society of Upper Canada ignored, whitewashed and covered up the entire mess to save three corrupt Bay Street lawyers: Lorne Silver, Gerald Ranking and Sebastien Kwidzinski.

And that was only the Nelson Barbados and Donald Best Ontario civil case.

As the Toronto Star newspaper’s Broken Trust series revealed, in the last few years the Law Society of Upper Canada also covered up several hundred other cases where Ontario lawyers committed criminal offences. (12,13)

At the Cambridge Lectures when Bill Browder gave his talk on corruption in Russia, he did not know that the moderator who introduced him, Paul Schabas, lacks the integrity and courage to hold corrupt Bay Street lawyers accountable. By his continued silence, Paul Schabas facilitates corruption and protects rogue members of Ontario’s legal elites.

“I will leave it to my readers to make what they will of the fact that in all these years, none of the people I name has sued me or asked the court for an injunction to remove my evidence and writings, or to curtail my future statements.”

Supporting Evidence for Statements of Fact

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

For three years I, Donald Best, have published court documents and exhibits (including voice recordings and forensic reports) that detail my ten year journey through Ontario’s civil courts and prove criminal and/or other serious wrongdoing by senior Ontario lawyers, police personnel and at least one judge.

The corrupt senior lawyers and those in the legal profession who protected them made sure that no jury of my peers would ever be able to consider this evidence in a court. They were successful in preventing my civil case from reaching trial because the legal profession and the Canadian justice system closed ranks and did everything possible to protect these senior lawyers who are members of a very exclusive club.

Nonetheless, for three years I’ve told my story here and at other venues, including in the Globe and Mail newspaper and at the University of Windsor Law Faculty’s National Self-Represented Litigants Project.

For three years I’ve publicly named certain senior lawyers and police officers – called them “corrupt”, and published evidence of their criminal acts and other wrong-doing. I have published the name of an Ontario Superior Court judge and provided evidence of his actions that several senior lawyers and a retired Crown Attorney call “despotic”, “disgusting”, “reprehensible”, “malicious” and “worthy of his removal from the bench.”(14)

I will leave it to my readers to make what they will of the fact that in all these years, none of the people I name has sued me or asked the court for an injunction to remove my evidence and writings, or to curtail my future statements. Read more

Will Canada Revenue Agency investigate lawyer’s transfer of 1 million to a phoney client?

Will Canada Revenue Agency take on Big Law?

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

Canada Revenue Agency (‘CRA’) recently announced that it has launched dozens of investigations into offshore monies that surfaced in the Panama Papers leak. (Toronto Star news article here)

The agency says it has “upped its game” in going after the money-laundering, tax-fraud crowd with a half-a-billion dollar budget increase aimed squarely at funding such investigations.

I wonder if the CRA will shy away from investigating big Bay Street law firms – given that everybody knows that without corrupt lawyers and accountants, tax-fraud and money-laundering would be severely obstructed for most of the offshore monied class.

Considering that a recent Global Witness ‘cold-call’ undercover investigation showed that fully 25% of big city lawyers are willing to money-launder, we can safely assume that a much higher percentage of lawyers would do the dirty deed for their known and trusted client base.

Unless the Canada Revenue Agency is willing to take on Big Law, their investigations will only yield low hanging fruit – little guys.

So in the spirit of Canadians cooperating with the Canada Revenue Agency to lower all our tax pressures, I offer the following set of circumstances that can easily be proven through documents already filed as evidence before the courts. CRA investigators and my readers shouldn’t believe anything I say though… they should examine the evidence and make up their own minds.

Money laundering question: Where did the million dollars go?

Big Law Firm lawyers Gerald Ranking – Lorne Silver knew Ranking’s purported client did not exist.

Toronto lawyer Gerald Ranking and his Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP law firm were paid over a million dollars in court costs during the Nelson Barbados Group vs Cox civil lawsuit – in trust for their purported client, ‘PricewaterhouseCoopers East Caribbean Firm’.

Only one little problem: Gerald Ranking, Faskens and co-counsel Lorne Silver knew that the Ranking’s client was a phoney non-entity that does not, and did not, exist at any time.

The use of a fraudulent, non-existant business entity for financial transactions is a recognized badge of fraud and money-laundering.

While Gerald Ranking’s use of a phoney client and non-existent business entity offered his real clients some measure of protection if the civil suit was lost, it created problems when the court ordered payments to the phoney non-existent business. By definition, a phoney non-existent business cannot have a bank account.

During the Nelson Barbados Group Ltd. civil case, about a million dollars in costs was paid to Faskens and Ranking in trust for their fraudulent non-existent ‘client’. So where did Faskens and Ranking transfer the money received ‘in trust’ for their phoney client?

The one thing we do know about where the money went is that it was never deposited into any bank account in the name ‘PricewaterhouseCoopers East Caribbean Firm’ as the court ordered.

How did Fasken and Ranking work around the currency laws of Barbados, applicable income tax laws and other legal problems that must have arisen when transferring a million dollars the court ordered paid to a non-existent, phoney, fraudulent non-entity?

That, as they say, is an excellent question that is certainly worthy of consideration by the courts, Canada Revenue Agency, the Law Society of Upper Canada and by ordinary Canadians.

Here’s where CRA and my readers can find the sworn and filed court evidence to investigate and decide this matter for themselves:

September 17, 2015 – Why did Fasken Martineau lawyer Gerald Ranking not submit costs to the Supreme Court of Canada?

September 20, 2014 – Lawsuit Claim: Faskens lawyer Gerald Ranking knowingly represented a phoney business entity, lied to the Supreme Court of Canada.

March 27, 2016 – Anonymous Companies: Global Witness undercover investigation shows 25% of lawyers will money launder.

Let me make it quite clear: Lawyer Gerald Ranking of the large Canadian law firm Fasken Martineau DuMoulin, knowingly lied to the Superior Court of Ontario, the Appeal Court of Ontario and to the Supreme Court of Canada. Starting in 2007, Ranking falsely claimed that his purported client ‘Pricewaterhouse Coopers East Caribbean Firm’ was a business legitimately registered with the Government of Barbados. That was a lie in 2007, and it continues to be a lie.

Ranking and his witness maintained that lie for years, even in the face of irrefutable evidence to the contrary. In January of 2013, Ranking even sought to reinforce the lie by fraudulently reading into the court record deliberately false renditions of Barbados government records. The evidence to support all this is filed with the courts, and is available here at DonaldBest.ca.

Fasken Martineau DuMoulin lawyer Gerald Ranking is a liar. His actions were unethical and illegal. He lied to the Supreme Court of Canada.

 

Further… there is the question of the million dollars paid into Ranking’s trust account for a non-existent, fraudulent client that could not have possibly had a bank account.

And the money ended up where?

Clear enough? Good!

 

Fasken Martineau DuMoulin staff read about misconduct by Toronto lawyer Gerald Ranking

Today we welcome (again) personnel from Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP’s Toronto law office who dropped by my website at 11:20:21 GMT after following a link from my @DonaldBestCA Twitter account.

It is great to have you guys and gals at Faskens following my Twitter account and reading the stories here at DonaldBest.CA. You’ve visited hundreds of times in the last few years.

Faskens lawyer Gerald L Ranking

Today you read evidence of how your senior partner and colleague Gerald L. Ranking didn’t submit a claim for costs to the Supreme Court of Canada – because Gerry and the senior managing partners at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP knew that their purported client, ‘PricewaterhouseCoopers East Caribbean Firm’ does not, and did not, exist at any time.

Ranking and Faskens did not want to double-down on their fraud upon the Supreme Court of Canada and have the SCC issue another cost order to what the lawyers know is a false, phoney, criminally fraudulent, non-existent ‘client’.

That’s all laid out in the articles that Faskens staff read today, including Why did Fasken Martineau lawyer Gerald Ranking not submit costs to the Supreme Court of Canada?

But hey… if you bump into your colleague in the hallowed halls of your Bay Street tower, you might want to consider (or not) asking Gerald Ranking this one question about money-laundering:

During the Nelson Barbados Group Ltd. civil case, about a million dollars in costs was paid to Faskens and Ranking in trust for their fraudulent non-existent ‘client’. So where did Faskens and Ranking transfer the money received ‘in trust’ for their phoney client?

The one thing we do know about where the money went is that it was never deposited into any bank account in the name ‘PricewaterhouseCoopers East Caribbean Firm’ as the court ordered.

Fasken’s and Ranking’s client doesn’t exist, never existed – and they know it. The use of a phony non-existent entity for court and monetary transactions is a recognized badge of fraud and money-laundering.

So where did the million dollars end up?

Will the Law Society of Upper Canada audit the financial transactions of one of the big Bay Street Boys Club law firms? Not a chance, my friends.

Not. A. Chance.

by Donald Best in Ontario, Canada