Canada has mob ties and a money laundering problem

*Spoken in the worst Tony Soprano impersonation you’ve ever heard* You think La Casa Nostra don’t have a piece of da pie in da Great White North? Ayyy, fuhgeddaboudit! 

Driving the news: A faction of the infamous 'Ndrangheta Italian mafia allegedly laundered money through TD and RBC branches in Ontario after a suspected leader made connections with bank employees, according to reporting by the Toronto Star and other media outlets.

• The alleged mastermind was Angelo Figliomeni — a humble Italian immigrant panini seller who also happened to have millions in the bank and “chauffeurs at the ready.” 

Zoom in: The alleged crimes happened throughout the early-to-mid 2010s, with a massive police investigation in 2017 exposing the conspiracy. However, lawyers claimed police misused wiretaps, meaning crucial evidence was off the table, and charges were stayed. 

• Because of this, details on the case were never made public, and the authorities were forced to hand back over $35 million in seized assets.

Why it matters: Money laundering has infected Canada’s financial ecosystem. An internal report from Fintrac — Canada’s financial crimes watchdog — found that almost all the banks and real estate companies it audited last year failed to follow anti-money laundering rules.  

• Canada is so attractive to international criminals that there’s even a specific term for laundering money in Canada, “snow-washing” — which, admittedly, is a clever name. 

• Be it from financial crime or for terrorist financing, between $40 billion and $130 billion a year in dirty money flows through Canada’s economy, per one accountant.

Big picture: Fintrac is able to fine institutions for non-compliance, but critics feel the fines aren’t big enough to force banks to step up policing efforts. CIBC was fined $1.3 million last year, while RBC was fined $7.4 million — mere drops in the bucket for such big banks.—QH