Those behind the websites, who were not licensed to produce or sell cannabis, laundered the cash through a network of numbered businesses and personal accounts.
.
Three BC websites selling illicit cannabis received wire transfers totaling more than $6.4 million in just over two years, according to a new lawsuit filed by the director of civil forfeiture.
Announcement 2
.
Those behind the websites, who were not licensed to produce or sell cannabis, then laundered the cash through a network of numbered businesses and personal accounts, the director alleged in the Aug. 4 lawsuit statement.
The provincial government wants eight properties valued at nearly $7 million to be seized as proceeds of crime. And he wants to keep the cash that is currently sitting in 26 accounts at five different banks, some personal and others linked to the companies allegedly involved.
The suit comes less than two months after British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen said in his final report on money laundering that the Civil Forfeiture Act should be used more aggressively to go after assets. of people involved in organized crime.
Announcement 3
.
Ten people and three companies have been named as defendants in the lawsuit, although several others are alleged to have laundered proceeds from illicit cannabis sales before returning the cash to the defendants.
Defendants Jay Jung, Kevin Aaron Chow, and Benjamin Tyler Johnson are directors of two companies that owned two Freshii restaurants in the Lower Mainland. They allegedly deposited some of the marijuana profits into their corporate accounts, the suit says.
Jung, Johnson, Matthew Douglas George, Monet Helen Beswick, and Josef Shechter “have owned and/or operated cannabis businesses called Shamrock Cannabis, Cankush, and Mountain High Marijuana, each of which offers cannabis products for purchase at their store. website,” said the director.
Announcement 4
.
“At no material time have any of the three companies been authorized by Health Canada or the British Columbia Liquor Control and Cannabis Branch to produce, possess for distribution, distribute, possess for sale, sell, promote the sale and/or or supply cannabis products.”
From April 2020 through early 2021, the three companies operated from a unit at 1355 Parker St. before moving operations to 329 Railway St. in Vancouver, the suit says.
The Railroad unit is leased to Nature’s Bodega Natural Products, a company that lists the same five names as directors in its corporate records.
All five “regularly attended the Parker site” until last year. “Since the beginning of 2021, they regularly attend the Railway site,” says the director.
ad 5
.
The five” and others working under their direction have regularly transported cannabis products and packaging to the Parker site and the Railroad site, packaged cannabis products purchased by customers on the websites of the three cannabis companies at the Parker site. Parker and the Railroad site using prepaid Canada Post wrapped and transported these packages to the Yaletown Xpress Canada Post store… to mail them to customers.”
None of the three websites is currently operational.
A woman who answered the phone at Nature’s Bodega on Monday said she knew nothing about the allegations, but that the Railroad office is used only to ship health and beauty products.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, unfortunately,” he said. “We are just a distribution center here. So we have all of our Nature’s Bodega products that we ship.”
ad 6
.
An email request for comment from company management went unanswered.
And an employee at one of the Freshii restaurants that Jung had owned said Monday that the franchise had changed hands, something confirmed by local business license records.
The lawsuit lists 14 “laundering accounts” that received the electronically transferred funds, most of them related to people or companies not listed as defendants in the case.
“Most or all of the funds deposited in the laundering accounts from the sales of the three cannabis companies were transferred or disbursed before ultimately being returned to the defendants, Mr. Jung, Mr. Johnson, Mr. George, Mrs. Beswick, Mr. Shechter. , Man on the Moon Enterprises ltd., Summer Slopes Holdings Ltd. and/or 1167249 BC Ltd.”
ad 7
.
None of the defendants have filed a defense statement, and none have been criminally charged.
Half of the 26 accounts containing cash that the government wants to seize are held by Jung or his Man On The Moon company. Two properties he owns or co-owns are among the eight the government wants to keep. Both were purchased last year.
“Jung has previously been convicted of two counts of possession of a controlled substance. He was subsequently arrested in possession of approximately three kilograms of cocaine,” the director said.
Other properties requested for forfeiture are located in Vancouver, Langley, Anmore and Kelowna.
The director alleges that “they were bought in whole or in part with the proceeds of illicit activities” or have been kept “by laundering the proceeds of crime.”
Twitter.com/kbolan
