At least one Russian crime syndicate, accused of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars around the world, appears to have also flowed millions through nearly 30 Canadian bank accounts.
Media outlets, tracking down some of the individuals and firms attached to those accounts, found $2 million sent to Canada, spread among recipients ranging from a fight manager in Montreal to a construction company in Calgary.
Many of them expressed surprise that documents provided to the media suggest the funds originated from a money-laundering scheme.
A handful of companies registered here also sent $17.6 million out of Canada to foreign accounts associated with the crime syndicate, according to the documents that chronicle hundreds of wire transfers in and out of Canada between 2008 and 2013.
A British-based investor doing business in Russia says that in 2007, his companies were stolen by an organized crime syndicate led by Russian crime boss Dmitry Klyuev.
The stolen firms were then put behind a fraudulent $227-million Russian tax refund shared by co-conspirators who quickly moved the money out of Russia and into other jurisdictions.
The alleged money laundering is being investigated in more than half a dozen countries and Klyuev himself has been sanctioned by the U.S. government. He is one of about a dozen Russians named in a law in the U.S. barring them from the country, or holding assets there.
In Canada, the House of Commons foreign affairs committee recently recommended this country do the same.
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