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Alberta

7 arrests. Police seize $16 million in cash, real estate, and vehicles from Alberta, BC money laundering operation

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News release from ALERT (Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team)

Project Collector halts Cross-Canada money laundering

Calgary… A professional money laundering organization, working in support of some of Canada’s largest crime groups, has been dismantled following an unprecedented investigation by ALERT and the RCMP.

Project Collector is a three-year financial crime investigation conducted jointly between ALERT Calgary’s financial crime team and RCMP Federal Serious and Organized Crime (FSOC). The investigation began in Calgary and led to the dismantling of a nation-wide criminal organization involved in money laundering.

Seven suspects have been charged, with arrests taking place in Calgary and Vancouver. In addition, more than $16 million in bank accounts, real estate holdings, and vehicles have been placed under criminal restraint.

Proceeds of crime from some of Canada’s largest criminal organizations were allegedly being transported between Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia. In a one-year period alone investigators identified the transfer of $24 million in cash, while the group’s money laundering activities date back to at least 2013.

Project Collector began in July 2018 after $1 million in cash, that was destined for Vancouver, was intercepted in Calgary. ALERT and RCMP launched an extensive investigation that relied heavily on intelligence from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).

Project Collector revealed that the group operated pseudo-bank branches at either side of the country, which while holding large cash reserves, allowed organized crime groups utilizing its service to transfer funds while avoiding the detection of financial banking institutions and authorities. The money laundering was primarily connected back to drug trafficking proceeds.

In total, 71 criminal offences are being pursued against the money laundering organization. Charges include participation in a criminal organization, laundering proceeds of crime, and trafficking property obtained by crime. Charges were also laid under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act.

The arrests took place in September 2022:

  • Lien Ha, 42-year-old from Calgary,
  • Donald Hoang, 26-year-old from Vancouver;
  • Van Duc Hoang, 64-year-old from Vancouver;
  • Van Thi Nguyen, 62-year-old from Vancouver;
  • Cynthia Nguyen, 42-year-old from Calgary;
  • Yuong Nguyen, 43-year-old from Calgary; and
  • Grace Tang, 25-year-old from Vancouver.

Link to charge sheet (PDF)

During the course of the investigation, search warrants were executed at a total of 10 homes in the Calgary region, Toronto area, and Vancouver.

Project Collector relied on the assistance of a number of police agencies and specialized units, including: Calgary Police Service, Canada Revenue Agency, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), Forensic Accounting Management Group (FAMG), Vancouver Police, Toronto Police, Edmonton Police, Halton Police, Seized Property Management Directorate, and RCMP units in Ontario and British Columbia.

Members of the public who suspect drug or gang activity in their community can call local police, or contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477). Crime Stoppers is always anonymous.

ALERT was established and is funded by the Alberta Government and is a compilation of the province’s most sophisticated law enforcement resources committed to tackling serious and organized crime.

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Alberta

Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

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From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Cody Ciona

‘Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests’

Billions of investment in new data centres is still expected in Alberta despite the province’s electric system operator placing a temporary limit on new large-load grid connections, said Carson Kearl, lead data centre analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research.

Kearl cited NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s estimate from earlier this year that building a one-gigawatt data centre costs between US$60 billion and US$80 billion.

That implies the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO)’s 1.2 gigawatt temporary limit would still allow for up to C$130 billion of investment.

“It’s got the potential to be extremely impactful to the Alberta power sector and economy,” Kearl said.

Importantly, data centre operators can potentially get around the temporary limit by ‘bringing their own power’ rather than drawing electricity from the existing grid.

In Alberta’s deregulated electricity market – the only one in Canada – large energy consumers like data centres can build the power supply they need by entering project agreements directly with electricity producers.

According to the AESO, there are 30 proposed data centre projects across the province.

The total requested power load for these projects is more than 16 gigawatts, roughly four gigawatts more than Alberta’s demand record in January 2024 during a severe cold snap.

For comparison, Edmonton’s load is around 1.4 gigawatts, the AESO said.

“Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,” CEO Aaron Engen said in a statement.

“Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.”

As data centre projects come to the province, so do jobs and other economic benefits.

“You have all of the construction staff associated; electricians, engineers, plumbers, and HVAC people for all the cooling tech that are continuously working on a multi-year time horizon. In the construction phase there’s a lot of spend, and that is just generally good for the ecosystem,” said Kearl.

Investment in local power infrastructure also has long-term job implications for maintenance and upgrades, he said.

“Alberta is a really exciting place when it comes to building data centers,” said Beacon AI CEO Josh Schertzer on a recent ARC Energy Ideas podcast.

“It has really great access to natural gas, it does have some excess grid capacity that can be used in the short term, it’s got a great workforce, and it’s very business-friendly.”

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.

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Alberta

Alberta Next: Taxation

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A new video from the Alberta Next panel looks at whether Alberta should stop relying on Ottawa to collect our provincial income taxes. Quebec already does it, and Alberta already collects corporate taxes directly. Doing the same for personal income taxes could mean better tax policy, thousands of new jobs, and less federal interference. But it would take time, cost money, and require building new systems from the ground up.

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