Episode 8

Unexplained Wealth Orders with Chris Thompson

In this episode, host Greg Dent sits down with Chris Thompson, a former lawyer who now works in the provincial government's financial crimes capacity. They dive into the topic of Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs), a powerful tool in the fight against financial crime that has recently been introduced in Canada, starting with British Columbia.

Chris provides a comprehensive overview of UWOs, explaining that they are court orders that compel individuals to explain the source of funds for their assets, even without a criminal conviction. He highlights how UWOs are an important tool for law enforcement, as they help overcome the challenges of tracing complex financial transactions, particularly when it comes to organized crime.

The discussion explores the controversial aspects of UWOs, such as the lower standard of proof required compared to criminal convictions. This raises concerns about the presumption of innocence and the potential for abuse. However, Chris argues that there are safeguards in place, such as the need for court approval, and that UWOs are necessary to prevent criminals from living off the proceeds of their crimes.

The episode also delves into a case study of the successful use of UWOs in the UK, the Haji-Ioannou case, which demonstrates the effectiveness of this tool in addressing suspected proceeds of crime. Additionally, the conversation touches on the practical considerations and future directions for UWOs in Canada, as other provinces may follow BC's lead in introducing this legislation.

Overall, this episode provides a comprehensive understanding of Unexplained Wealth Orders, their importance in the fight against financial crime, and the ongoing debate around balancing law enforcement powers and civil liberties.

Key Takeaways:

·      Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs) are a court order that compels individuals to explain the source of funds for assets, even without a criminal conviction.

·      UWOs are an important tool in fighting organized crime and removing the proceeds of

crime, as they help law enforcement overcome challenges in tracing complex financial transactions.

·      The lower standard of proof required for UWOs(reasonable grounds to suspect) compared to criminal convictions is controversial, as it raises concerns about the presumption of innocence.

·    Effective implementation of UWOs requires a balance between empowering law enforcement and protecting civil liberties, with safeguards such as court approval.

·      UWOs have been successfully used in other jurisdictions, such as the high-profile Haji-Ioannou case in the UK, and are now being introduced in Canada, starting with British Columbia.

Learn more about Christ at https://www.bcsc.bc.ca/guardians/meet-our-enforcement-staff-investigator-chris-thompson

Connect with Greg and ReallyTrusted at:

https://reallytrusted.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ReallyTrusted/


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Transcript
Greg Dent:

Okay, welcome to another episode of The know your

Greg Dent:

compliance podcast. I am extremely excited to be sitting

Greg Dent:

down with a good friend of mine, Chris Thompson. Now, Chris is

Greg Dent:

trained as a lawyer and works for the provincial government in

Greg Dent:

a financial crimes capacity, so I'm his background is wonderful

Greg Dent:

for the conversation about unexplained law focus, but I'll

Greg Dent:

let Chris introduce himself, and then we'll get into the topic.

Greg Dent:

Yes,

Chris Thompson:

I'm a proud former lawyer. The practice of

Chris Thompson:

law was not for me, but it was an interesting venture that led

Chris Thompson:

me to where I am now, which I'm quite happy at. But I mean, if

Chris Thompson:

you guys Google me. You can probably figure out where it

Chris Thompson:

worked. But just as a disclaimer, I am appearing here

Chris Thompson:

in my own capacity and abuse. I'm about to espouse are mine

Chris Thompson:

and mine alone. So

Greg Dent:

all right, you, you have not been sanctioned or

Greg Dent:

officially sanctioned,

Chris Thompson:

correct? Cool, cool, yeah, nor is it anything

Chris Thompson:

we'd actually deal with normally. We wouldn't deal with

Chris Thompson:

these. But it's a personal interest to me so well,

Greg Dent:

I think, and that's actually why I reached out to

Greg Dent:

you in the first place, is the intersection of your

Greg Dent:

professional obligations right now and your background as a

Greg Dent:

trained lawyer and having worked as a lawyer are kind of the

Greg Dent:

perfect intersection for this specific topic. So with all of

Greg Dent:

that being said, the topic today we're going to be talking about

Greg Dent:

is unexplained wealth. Is unexplained wealth orders. And,

Greg Dent:

well, I wanted to have this conversation because unexplained

Greg Dent:

wealth orders are newer into Canada. In fact, new into BC,

Greg Dent:

only at this point in time. But are a really important tool. You

Greg Dent:

know, we spend our world in on the really trusted side. I think

Greg Dent:

we spend our life in deep in fin track and fatfa is big component

Greg Dent:

of unexplained wealth orders. Yes, and so I think there's some

Greg Dent:

obvious kind of reasons for us to be having a conversation. But

Greg Dent:

let's start at the very beginning, because some of our

Greg Dent:

audience won't necessarily know what an explained wealth order

Greg Dent:

some of our audience comes from other provinces. Some Yeah, so

Greg Dent:

can you give us, like a two, three minute intro to what an

Greg Dent:

unexplained wealth order is for a struggle?

Chris Thompson:

So in in one sentence, an unexplained wealth

Chris Thompson:

order is an order from a government or an investigatory

Chris Thompson:

body to explain the source of funds for an asset. And the

Chris Thompson:

context of that is, typically you have investigations that go

Chris Thompson:

into that look into criminal bodies or criminal gangs or any

Chris Thompson:

types of financial non financial crime, and criminals have to

Chris Thompson:

hide the money somewhere. And a lot of the times, the

Chris Thompson:

investigations, for whatever reason, don't result in criminal

Chris Thompson:

charges, or they're hampered in some way, or they can't be

Chris Thompson:

charged threshold, but whatever the case is, but there's these

Chris Thompson:

assets that you're reasonably there's a reasonably sure are

Chris Thompson:

proceeds of crime. I mean, we all know the obvious examples,

Chris Thompson:

the the 18 year old kid at your high school that's driving a

Chris Thompson:

Bentley, right, and mom works at Safeway, and Dad is unemployed

Chris Thompson:

or something like, okay, it does not take a genius to figure out

Chris Thompson:

that that kid's doing something sketchy positive, right? Yeah,

Chris Thompson:

and so fat. If the Financial Action passports is very a

Chris Thompson:

global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog,

Chris Thompson:

they have said essentially that a country must have a non

Chris Thompson:

conviction based civil forfeiture, unless their

Chris Thompson:

constitution for visit, which is our civil forfeiture of the

Chris Thompson:

civil forfeiture office, which is different than an unexplained

Chris Thompson:

wealth order. But Fauci also says that they should also have

Chris Thompson:

a law that forces someone to explain the lawful origin of

Chris Thompson:

property, interesting. And so this, these UW O's are sort of

Chris Thompson:

newer in kind of a worldwide context, and there's a number of

Chris Thompson:

countries that have started. But as you're saying, Yeah, BC, as

Chris Thompson:

far as I know, it was the first Canadian province to do

Greg Dent:

Yeah. And I mean, from a BC point of view, it came

Greg Dent:

straight out of the column commission, really, yes. If we

Greg Dent:

go back to where the the origins of how we got here are,

Chris Thompson:

I think it was recommendation, like 101 it was

Chris Thompson:

like 99 that I'm saying we need people to investigate stuff. And

Chris Thompson:

then number 101 was,

Greg Dent:

we need a UW, L, we need a new tool in this fight.

Greg Dent:

Yeah. Now I think some of our listeners are probably going to

Greg Dent:

pick up on one of the real challenges, and I think we'll

Greg Dent:

come back to the challenge in a second. But one of the real

Greg Dent:

challenges is there's kind of a presumption of guilt all of a

Greg Dent:

sudden, instead of a presumption really sets, is what, what some

Greg Dent:

would say, yes, yeah. So I think I want to asterisk that up

Greg Dent:

front, because I know some people are going to be just

Greg Dent:

focused in on that, because that's the first thing you hear,

Greg Dent:

yes, if you're not, if you're not thinking through that, well,

Greg Dent:

if you're not looking at that in a bigger picture of broader

Greg Dent:

sense kind of thing, yeah. I think where I wanted to kind of

Greg Dent:

go first though was, Is this a tool that was necessary? I mean,

Greg Dent:

I acknowledge that fat for recommends it and look like as a

Greg Dent:

member of the g7 we started fat for, like Canada has clearly

Greg Dent:

bought into all of this things, whether we've done a good job of

Greg Dent:

implementing a recommendation. Questions that we signed on for

Greg Dent:

in the first place, but many would argue we have not, but

Greg Dent:

that's a that's well outside the scope, but I guess so. One are

Greg Dent:

unexplained wealth orders a necessary tool, and are they

Greg Dent:

being used effectively? Or where are we in that continuum? I

Greg Dent:

suppose that's where I would start. Yeah,

Chris Thompson:

and it depends on what you mean by the word

Chris Thompson:

necessary, like it's it will be an incredibly useful tool, and

Chris Thompson:

it will assist in taking on a lot of organized crime and and

Chris Thompson:

not punishing offenders in the legal sense, but removing some

Chris Thompson:

of the proceeds of crime. But they always say, you know, uh,

Chris Thompson:

crime doesn't pay. Yeah, it does. Actually, it pays quite

Chris Thompson:

well. That's, that's, that's why crime exists. Any, anyone,

Chris Thompson:

anyone who works in any kind of law enforcement agency will tell

Chris Thompson:

you, crime pays very well in the general case, I mean, it's,

Chris Thompson:

we're all doing our best to stop and deter and detect and assess

Chris Thompson:

and disrupt and all those things. But you need tools and

Chris Thompson:

is it necessary? Well, if you want to be able to to take steps

Chris Thompson:

to remove the proceeds of crime, given the legal infrastructure

Chris Thompson:

that we have now, like the charter and all those things,

Chris Thompson:

yeah, I would say yes. I mean, is the world going to collapse

Chris Thompson:

if we don't have them? Yeah, going on. We haven't had them

Chris Thompson:

forever, up until now, and society hasn't collapsed into

Chris Thompson:

energy and chaos. But I think it's an incredibly useful tool,

Chris Thompson:

or could be an incredibly useful tool, and to, again, just assist

Chris Thompson:

in fighting crime in a different capacity, okay? And like

Greg Dent:

just to, I want to really double down and double

Greg Dent:

click on something you just said, which I think is hugely

Greg Dent:

important, crime does pay. Like, that's, oh, yeah, in fact,

Greg Dent:

that's why crime exists. If, if you could go and make billions

Greg Dent:

of dollars selling whatever else, you probably wouldn't sell

Greg Dent:

cocaine. Like, that's crime case, period, full stop. And

Greg Dent:

that's, that's fundamentally why I'm why I do what I do with the

Greg Dent:

company, is because I do believe that by by implementing

Greg Dent:

appropriate controls in businesses, we can actually make

Greg Dent:

a dent in our society and remove some of the crime that that we

Greg Dent:

do see, and I like that, that I'm fully bought in, yes. So

Greg Dent:

that part, I'm on board with

Chris Thompson:

that to some degree, though. That's more of a

Chris Thompson:

preventative thing, like UWS roll out for the fact, well,

Greg Dent:

yeah. But if you, if you can prevent it, if you can

Greg Dent:

make it, yeah, if you make it less likely that people are

Greg Dent:

going to get to keep the keep the money at the end of all

Greg Dent:

this, yeah, that's true. They're they're less likely to to want

Greg Dent:

to do it in the first place. It becomes less appealing. Yes. Now

Greg Dent:

UW owes have been in place in other jurisdictions. Yes. And I

Greg Dent:

know you did a bit of reading into that ahead of time. Maybe

Greg Dent:

walk us through. We were talking about off fire. We were talking

Greg Dent:

about the case in London. That seems like a particularly

Greg Dent:

interesting, useful to illustrate why these are

Greg Dent:

important tools in the fight of in financial investigation,

Greg Dent:

support,

Chris Thompson:

yeah, and that's, I think, one of the one

Chris Thompson:

of the aspects of this being a relatively new thing, is that

Chris Thompson:

it's been used. You start with sort of the most egregious

Chris Thompson:

cases, and you don't want to go with a brand new law the court

Chris Thompson:

and try and test its constitutionality like a

Chris Thompson:

marginal case, right? You want to go in there where the case,

Chris Thompson:

where you literally your brief, can be like, dear court, duh

Chris Thompson:

Stein, the plaintiffs, right? And that seems to have been the

Chris Thompson:

case for a lot of the UWS that I've seen so far. So the

Chris Thompson:

example, I thought a lot of this is, is from a report, and it's a

Chris Thompson:

star Wealth Report, which you can just Google. It's, it's

Chris Thompson:

quite interesting, if you like reading 128 pages on obscure

Chris Thompson:

legal

Greg Dent:

so for listeners, probably do, actually, to be

Greg Dent:

honest. So

Chris Thompson:

Well, probably 100% of the people at this table

Chris Thompson:

do, exactly, yeah. So this is a case. That's the Haji ever case

Chris Thompson:

out of the UK. This was 2018 so there was an a guy who worked in

Chris Thompson:

the government of Azerbaijan. He moved to London, he and his

Chris Thompson:

wife, and over the previous 10 years, so from oh six to 2016

Chris Thompson:

she spent 16 million pounds, about 20 million US at Harris,

Chris Thompson:

which is a luxury department store. They bought a house for

Chris Thompson:

13 point 2 million US dollars, which were expenses that were

Chris Thompson:

vastly out of keeping of what her husband could make in his

Chris Thompson:

own home country. And their house was owned by a British

Chris Thompson:

Virgin Islands BVI company linked to both her and her

Chris Thompson:

husband. So this drew the attention of the UK authorities,

Chris Thompson:

as also her husband, had been convicted in 2016 of

Chris Thompson:

misappropriation and fraud. He got 15 years in jail and was

Chris Thompson:

ordered to pay $39 million and so some of the funnier things is

Chris Thompson:

like she spends $20 million at least $2 million at Herods a

Chris Thompson:

year. And there was one I found she spent, uh. Let me pull it up

Chris Thompson:

here. She spent, I think, 30 she spent 600,000 pounds in one day

Chris Thompson:

on a spending spree. She also spent, I think, like, $30,000 in

Chris Thompson:

one shot to Godiva chocolates. That's

Greg Dent:

a couple of chocolates. That's a couple of

Chris Thompson:

that. Yes, I don't know how long would it

Chris Thompson:

take you to eat $30,000 of Godiva, but that's

Greg Dent:

a pretty high quality job, true.

Chris Thompson:

So not exactly a sympathetic case. And so here's

Chris Thompson:

a case where, okay, this guy's been convicted in, I assume, he

Chris Thompson:

was convicted in Azerbaijan and sentenced in order to prison.

Chris Thompson:

And this woman's later living in London with what are kind of,

Chris Thompson:

obviously proceeds of crime, like, there's, there's no way

Chris Thompson:

this actually buy this money legally. So then the question

Chris Thompson:

becomes, okay, if you don't have unexplained welfares, how do you

Chris Thompson:

prevent this type of of living large based off your crime? And

Chris Thompson:

I mean, she's not convicted of a crime, you know, it's arguable

Chris Thompson:

whether or not she's done anything wrong, like she's just

Chris Thompson:

been given a blank check from her husband, and maybe she

Chris Thompson:

hasn't, but still, this is the person. These are the proceeds

Chris Thompson:

of crime. And if you want to make crime not pay, you got to

Chris Thompson:

go after these types of things. You absolutely have to, yeah,

Chris Thompson:

and so they did, and that was the first case.

Greg Dent:

So you started by talking, and I think we didn't

Greg Dent:

go into the distinction which I'm hopefully vote to make,

Greg Dent:

which is you started by talking about this is an investigative

Greg Dent:

tool, yes, and this case just ended up in what sounded more

Greg Dent:

like forfeiture. In fact. Can we just parse the parse part? Parse

Greg Dent:

apart for our listeners a little bit for a second, the difference

Greg Dent:

there between forfeiture and, yeah,

Chris Thompson:

investigation in some cases. I mean, it might

Chris Thompson:

legally, there's a difference. There might be a distinction

Chris Thompson:

without a difference, for the for the general public, but an

Chris Thompson:

unexplained wealth order, in and of itself, is just an order from

Chris Thompson:

the court for a subject to provide information on the

Chris Thompson:

source of welfare property. So like, Hey, okay, you know, haul

Chris Thompson:

someone out of gym class and get them to explain where they got

Chris Thompson:

the money for their Bentley like that. That's it. It's a court

Chris Thompson:

order. You have to go to court. You have to file a bunch of

Chris Thompson:

stuff, and the court will say, yes, okay, you can make this

Chris Thompson:

person tell you where they got the money from. And that's it.

Chris Thompson:

It doesn't give you the authorization to seize it.

Chris Thompson:

Doesn't give you any other powers. You can't freeze it, you

Chris Thompson:

can't do any of those things. You just have the power to

Chris Thompson:

compel the person to provide the information. And then, if the

Chris Thompson:

information is insufficient, well, there's, then, when I was

Chris Thompson:

looking into that, now, there's, there's three possibilities,

Chris Thompson:

yeah, I

Chris Thompson:

think this is not, yeah. Okay, so court grants the order. Well,

Chris Thompson:

let me back up a sec. So what the what the person has to

Chris Thompson:

provide is an affidavit to the court. So there's going to be

Chris Thompson:

some kind of investigator they have to provide. They have to

Chris Thompson:

swear an affidavit to a court saying, and this is BC specific.

Chris Thompson:

It varies a little bit around the world, but the idea is the same.

Greg Dent:

And I should say, I think we've got a little bit

Greg Dent:

wrong. Manitoba has also introduced them, but hasn't used

Greg Dent:

them yet. Oh, okay, so, but BC is the first to use them, and

Greg Dent:

clearly, directionally, it seems likely that other provinces will

Greg Dent:

follow suit. That's I like to joke that BC lives in the future

Greg Dent:

on the water regular, yep,

Chris Thompson:

so the bleeding edge, yeah,

Greg Dent:

exactly. Yeah, yes.

Chris Thompson:

So if you think you know the high school kids

Chris Thompson:

mentally is proceeds of crime. What do you have to say is on an

Chris Thompson:

affidavit, there's a reason to suspect a person is involved in

Chris Thompson:

illegal activities or as a politically exposed person, you

Chris Thompson:

have to have a reason to believe that the person has an interest

Chris Thompson:

in the underlying property that you're looking to investigate.

Chris Thompson:

The property has to be worth more than $75,000 so you can't

Chris Thompson:

be like, Hey, where's that? Watch from PFO. Like, No. Uncle

Chris Thompson:

counts that. And there has to be one, a serious question to be

Chris Thompson:

tried, that one of these three things are true, that the known

Chris Thompson:

sources of income are insufficient to acquire or

Chris Thompson:

maintain the property. The property was used to engage in

Chris Thompson:

unlawful activity, or the property was acquired or

Chris Thompson:

maintained as a result of unlawful activity. And again,

Chris Thompson:

none of these are beyond a reasonable doubt or even balance

Chris Thompson:

of probabilities. So balance of probabilities is 50% plus one,

Chris Thompson:

yeah, the someone at trial, or fact, a court, whoever has to

Chris Thompson:

find that it's more likely than not that something has something

Chris Thompson:

happened. That's not the standard here. You've got reason

Chris Thompson:

to suspect the person is involved in legal activities.

Chris Thompson:

You have to have a reason to believe that the person has the

Chris Thompson:

interest in the property. And the legal term, serious question

Chris Thompson:

to be tried, basically means it has to make sense what you're

Chris Thompson:

saying, like you can't just ponder stuff up out of thin air.

Greg Dent:

So a lot of our listeners will become will be

Greg Dent:

familiar with the concept of reasonable grounds to suspect,

Greg Dent:

because that's when the threshold for a suspicious

Greg Dent:

transaction report must be filed okay for fin track filing

Greg Dent:

purposes. And so this distinction becomes really

Greg Dent:

important, and really, to me, interesting actually, because

Greg Dent:

what you're saying is that i. Uh, an unexplained wealth order

Greg Dent:

doesn't rise to the same level as a as if I'm if I'm hearing

Greg Dent:

you right anyway, doesn't have to have absolute fact, or

Greg Dent:

doesn't have to be beyond reasonable doubt. No, no, that's

Greg Dent:

interesting.

Chris Thompson:

And that's, again, the civil standard.

Chris Thompson:

There's no There's no jail time. People's liberty isn't knows

Chris Thompson:

liberty is threatened here, so you you don't need that beyond a

Chris Thompson:

reasonable doubt standard, okay? And that's where some of the

Chris Thompson:

controversy comes from. Is people saying, like, Well, hey,

Chris Thompson:

they haven't been convicted of a crime. They haven't been any of

Chris Thompson:

this stuff that the onus to prove your innocence is put on a

Chris Thompson:

person who owns the asset. Now, legally speaking, like

Chris Thompson:

conceptually, maybe that's true, depending on on how

Chris Thompson:

sophisticated your understanding of criminal law is. But to be

Chris Thompson:

found guilty of something, you have to be charged with a crime.

Chris Thompson:

Nobody's being charged with a crime, therefore, you're not

Chris Thompson:

innocent of anything anyway, like you're not guilty, you're

Chris Thompson:

not innocent. There's no possibility of you being found

Chris Thompson:

guilty of something because you're not being charged with a

Chris Thompson:

crime, right? So there's no onus on you to prove your innocence

Chris Thompson:

of anything because you're not being charged with a crime.

Chris Thompson:

There's an onus on you to to show that this property at

Chris Thompson:

question isn't the isn't the proceeds of crime, or at least

Chris Thompson:

that you acquired it illegally. And I guess the

Greg Dent:

debater in me would then say, sure, but if I can't

Greg Dent:

prove that I acquired this legally, the assumption is that

Greg Dent:

I acquired illegally. That's correct, and that is an

Greg Dent:

interesting term from how we normally view a lot of things in

Greg Dent:

Canada. I think

Chris Thompson:

maybe I mean, if you're used to looking at at

Chris Thompson:

things in the criminal context, that's true, yeah. But anyone

Chris Thompson:

who's ever filed their taxes knows that I was hoping it

Chris Thompson:

brings it's all back to tax. I worked as a tax lawyer, followed

Chris Thompson:

up tax there's certain situations in life where the

Chris Thompson:

subject or the person who owns an asset question is really the

Chris Thompson:

only one that can make sense of something that happens. So I

Chris Thompson:

wouldn't expect CRA to file my taxes, because I know what I did

Chris Thompson:

during the year. I know how my accounting structure set up. I

Chris Thompson:

know. Well, I mean, I, you know, earn a wage. It's fairly

Chris Thompson:

straightforward, like CRA could probably be pretty close to my

Chris Thompson:

taxes. But, you know, I own a house and I got rental income,

Chris Thompson:

they're not going to be able to parse through all my bank

Chris Thompson:

accounts and figure out how much I spent on rental maintenance

Chris Thompson:

like they're just not right without outrageous amounts of

Chris Thompson:

efforts. So there's a quote with something like the the taxpayers

Chris Thompson:

in the unique position of knowing all the information

Chris Thompson:

about the subject, right? So what it's the the theory of

Chris Thompson:

these unexplained wealth orders is that it's not practical for

Chris Thompson:

the government to figure out where you got the money to buy

Chris Thompson:

this asset from. Like, that's going to be prohibitively

Chris Thompson:

complicated for someone who has to compel bank records and

Chris Thompson:

transfers and a lot of these assets. I mean, if, if you're

Chris Thompson:

really good at money laundering, the money will come from

Chris Thompson:

overseas, like it's if you paid for your Bentley with a check

Chris Thompson:

drawn on a Panama bank, yeah? Like, good luck, right? It's

Chris Thompson:

going to take us years to figure that out, to be able to track it

Chris Thompson:

down, and we just don't have the resources to do that. Okay, so I

Chris Thompson:

mean unexplained wealth orders are a means to level the playing

Chris Thompson:

field between law enforcement and criminals, because law

Chris Thompson:

enforcement just doesn't have the resources to figure all this

Chris Thompson:

stuff out, but it's very, very easy for someone. Most of the

Chris Thompson:

time we can get into it's not but most of the time it's fairly

Chris Thompson:

easy for someone who legitimately acquired asset, an

Chris Thompson:

asset, to prove how to legitimately acquire it. Like,

Chris Thompson:

if, I mean, I own a house, like, okay, Chris, who I own this

Chris Thompson:

house? How do you bought this house? Okay, well, here's the

Chris Thompson:

mortgage documents, here's the money, here's where I sold my

Chris Thompson:

old house. Here's the bank records where it all came

Chris Thompson:

through. Here's my income for the last like, it's easy, I can

Chris Thompson:

do it in 10 minutes, right? Fair enough.

Greg Dent:

And in fact, going back to the taxes, your your

Greg Dent:

taxes would probably support your case, because that's

Greg Dent:

legitimately where the money came and you weren't trying to

Greg Dent:

hide, yeah, I think you weren't trying to hide any money into

Greg Dent:

that. So, yes, yeah, yes, yes, of course. No, that perfect.

Chris Thompson:

So I think now, sorry, the one part where it

Chris Thompson:

does get interesting is if it's like, I bought this house 15

Chris Thompson:

years ago. Well, I can't get the bank records. No banks keep

Chris Thompson:

records for 789, years. And I don't know if anyone's even

Chris Thompson:

looked at that yet, but the cases in BC are the ones again,

Chris Thompson:

where they're, what are called unsympathetic defendants, where

Chris Thompson:

it's like, well, yes, but yeah, there's going to be at some

Chris Thompson:

point, I think someone's going to say, like, Hey, man, yeah, I

Chris Thompson:

had a great night at a casino in on my 50th birthday, 17 years

Chris Thompson:

ago, and then you I deposited the money as a to the bank

Chris Thompson:

account. But the like, the bank records are long, so that's, you

Chris Thompson:

know, that's a bridge someone's gonna have to cross at some

Chris Thompson:

point. It doesn't sound like a fund bridge track to cross, I

Chris Thompson:

gotta be honest. Well, then the other side of this, maybe then

Chris Thompson:

the government will just think, like. Right? The detractors of

Chris Thompson:

the people who are arguing against this law, they're going

Chris Thompson:

to say stuff like, and it's legitimate that, you know, it

Chris Thompson:

can be abused. Taxpayers may not have the documentation, like all

Chris Thompson:

of that's true in or at least it's plausible, yeah, now there

Chris Thompson:

are safeguards in that this stuff has to go through a court,

Chris Thompson:

like someone in the law enforcement to kind of, like, I

Chris Thompson:

wouldn't be able to just go and see someone Bentley and, like,

Chris Thompson:

start driving it around. Well, thank goodness. And that's I

Chris Thompson:

probably would be able to fit in the Bentley. But anyway, you

Chris Thompson:

know, a lot of the almost any law enforcement power can be

Chris Thompson:

abused, but that's what we have the courts for. And I think

Chris Thompson:

most, most law enforcement agents and most law enforcement

Chris Thompson:

agencies, almost all the time, are trying to do, you know,

Chris Thompson:

proper, defective investigations. And I've, I've

Chris Thompson:

been in situations where I'm like, Okay, well, I asked for

Chris Thompson:

some information. The person's like, Hey, man, X, happened?

Chris Thompson:

It's no one's fault. Like, I had a flood in the basement 10 years

Chris Thompson:

ago. Here's the records. Like, the sewage backed up, like you

Chris Thompson:

want the box, like it's all yours, man. Like, oh, that's

Chris Thompson:

okay. You keep and you give people the benefit of the doubt.

Chris Thompson:

Okay, if there's sort of legitimate reason to, but again,

Chris Thompson:

this is this, UW, Bo, is the one situation while you're not

Chris Thompson:

giving people the benefit of the doubt as a policy, yeah. But if

Chris Thompson:

there's, I think there's different reasons where, if it's

Chris Thompson:

if you've got something that's wildly uncharacteristic with

Chris Thompson:

your income, well, you should have the paperwork, especially

Chris Thompson:

if it's recent.

Greg Dent:

So it's interesting. I think that, like as as we've

Greg Dent:

talked through this, to me the the most obvious use case,

Greg Dent:

immediate use case for this that I think will be interesting when

Greg Dent:

it eventually happens, is there the common example of where real

Greg Dent:

estate brokerages are failing in their contract obligations is

Greg Dent:

when the homemaker or the student buys the west side of

Greg Dent:

house and Anyway, it's such a it's such a cliche example that

Greg Dent:

I think it's almost a meme at this point.

Chris Thompson:

But we've had a few of those where you pull land

Chris Thompson:

title and it's like, yeah, owners, so and so, student, 99%

Chris Thompson:

and then 1% mom in where, right?

Greg Dent:

That question, and now suddenly, maybe that's,

Greg Dent:

would that be a good example of a good example of a case where a

Greg Dent:

nine planned author might be useful

Chris Thompson:

if there's ties to crime? Yeah. I mean, it's

Chris Thompson:

again, it's not, it's not a fishing expedition. Okay, we

Chris Thompson:

cannot just look at, you know, the the government, or whatever,

Chris Thompson:

the civil forfeiture office, or anyone the police. Just can't go

Chris Thompson:

wandering around saying like you are an Aston Martin, tell me how

Chris Thompson:

you know how you buy it. No, if you're just a law abiding

Chris Thompson:

citizen, and there's no reasonable grounds to suspect

Chris Thompson:

them, all these other pieces that you're actually tied to

Chris Thompson:

organized crime, you're not

Greg Dent:

going to get it on its own welfare. If that third

Greg Dent:

part of that three part test that that actually was

Greg Dent:

important, but I think is the part that kind of gives us some

Greg Dent:

comfort and protection, I guess is what you're suggesting. Well,

Greg Dent:

there's

Chris Thompson:

a the the third part is a serious question to be

Chris Thompson:

tried is the non sources of income or insufficient

Chris Thompson:

properties? Yeah? We Yeah. We still have to go to court with a

Chris Thompson:

bunch of facts, right? We can't just show up with some dude with

Chris Thompson:

a shiny thing and say, like, hey, what that shiny thing? Can

Chris Thompson:

you get him to prove to us how he bought it? Like, no, there's

Chris Thompson:

a process to go through,

Greg Dent:

so not a tool of bureaucratic welfare, not that

Greg Dent:

I'm aware of. Okay, yes, yeah. Okay, so I think we've started

Greg Dent:

to cover this a fair bit, and I think I just want to kind of

Greg Dent:

make sure we've addressed it, because I think it's the one

Greg Dent:

thing that people generally kind of get their backs up against

Greg Dent:

the wall, as you quite rightly said, the BC liberties, Civil

Greg Dent:

Liberties Association, sorry, came out pretty hard against

Greg Dent:

unexplainable authorities, yeah. And what's the, what's the case

Greg Dent:

against? And, I guess, what's the, what's the rationale, where

Greg Dent:

I think, where you think this probably passes the smell test

Greg Dent:

that at Port of all, yeah.

Chris Thompson:

So the the case against again, is, like you were

Chris Thompson:

saying, is we have a presumption of accidents, yeah, the general

Chris Thompson:

public writ large has the right to just go about our daily lives

Chris Thompson:

without harassment for police or any investigatory body

Chris Thompson:

generally, right? And the idea is that in order for be this

Chris Thompson:

subject of the scrutiny of the state, they must have some kind

Chris Thompson:

of evidence or probable cause, whatever your standard is, like

Chris Thompson:

that, there are we have, we generally have a right to be

Chris Thompson:

left alone, right? Yeah, and this is a situation where people

Chris Thompson:

feel that your your right to be left alone and your right to be

Chris Thompson:

innocent until proven guilty, that those two things are kind

Chris Thompson:

of being violated, one of the other rights, again, in the

Chris Thompson:

charter, or not in the charter, sorry, but one of our rights is

Chris Thompson:

until proven guilty. Like there's a fundamental concept in

Chris Thompson:

in our criminal system, our criminal systems, and pretty

Chris Thompson:

much everyone's around the world, yeah, that you know, we

Chris Thompson:

would sooner let 99 guilty. People go for free, then put one

Chris Thompson:

innocent person behind bars. And I think that right way to go.

Chris Thompson:

And then it's certainly frustrating in law enforcement

Chris Thompson:

jobs at times, but you know, it's not, it's not supposed to

Chris Thompson:

be easy. It's not supposed to be easy to lock someone up or take

Chris Thompson:

the money or, you know, give them sanctions. And so the

Chris Thompson:

opponents say this concept of we shouldn't have to prove our

Chris Thompson:

innocence, and this concept of basically being left alone by

Chris Thompson:

the state unless we've done something wrong, both of those

Chris Thompson:

are at odds with the idea of unexplained wealth over quite

Chris Thompson:

and like the Azerbaijani lady, has she done anything criminal?

Chris Thompson:

I don't know. Maybe not, like there was no allegations. She

Chris Thompson:

hasn't been charged with anything. She hasn't been

Chris Thompson:

convicted in hasn't been convicted in anything. All she's

Chris Thompson:

done is married some guy who probably extorted millions of

Chris Thompson:

dollars out of whoever, and then she is just living

Greg Dent:

off the luxury. Yeah, she somehow managed to spend 30

Greg Dent:

million of dollars. Well, her husband made about a million

Greg Dent:

dollars in the same period of time, exactly.

Chris Thompson:

Yeah, yeah. And so the the the next step of

Chris Thompson:

that. So my rationale is, my rationale, I think everyone's

Chris Thompson:

rational is, is it, is it conscionable to think that,

Chris Thompson:

okay, just because someone isn't convicted of a crime, that they

Chris Thompson:

should be able to live off the proceeds of crimes, yeah, and

Chris Thompson:

if, like, you take the counter example, like, that's, you know,

Chris Thompson:

brother a and Brother B. Brother B's a drug dealer, earns much

Chris Thompson:

money, buys brother a, a Bentley in a house and all these other

Chris Thompson:

things. Okay, well, do we want to let brother a keep the beta

Chris Thompson:

in the house? I kind of think no. I mean, brother a hasn't

Chris Thompson:

committed a crime. He hasn't done anything wrong. I just

Chris Thompson:

don't think in in sort of a legal system writ large and fat,

Chris Thompson:

if agrees with me, on a worldwide basis, that it just

Chris Thompson:

doesn't make sense, it would offend the sensibilities of most

Chris Thompson:

people, yeah, to see like the little brothers of drug dealers

Chris Thompson:

being able to keep their Bentleys and all these other

Chris Thompson:

proceeds of crime forever.

Greg Dent:

It does make it a bit easier to become a criminal with

Greg Dent:

while you personally might not be advanced if your entire

Greg Dent:

family and the ones you love or whatever will be then, yeah,

Greg Dent:

you're probably right, yeah.

Chris Thompson:

One of the other things you got to think about,

Chris Thompson:

too with these unexplained wealth orders is it? One of the

Chris Thompson:

goals was to really go after the heads of organized crime gangs.

Chris Thompson:

Okay? Because they're typically structured in a way that the

Chris Thompson:

people up at the top aren't the ones going up and committing the

Chris Thompson:

day to day Crimean, but they're the ones that have the the

Chris Thompson:

mansions. They're crimers. Do crime. They crying. You need to

Chris Thompson:

stop crying. Carry on. Yeah. So yeah, the the heads of organized

Chris Thompson:

crime gangs, you know, the money funnels up and and the low level

Chris Thompson:

guys that keep getting that, getting charged with whatever it

Chris Thompson:

is that they're doing, yeah. And if you want to go after the

Chris Thompson:

upper level Echelon people, it's going to be really, really hard

Chris Thompson:

to get everyone to get everyone to flip on the way up. And an

Chris Thompson:

easier way to do it is just take all their stuff, right if you

Chris Thompson:

can prove that all of this stuff, or at least with an

Chris Thompson:

unexplained wealth order, if they're unable to prove that all

Chris Thompson:

of their assets, or whatever assets you're investigating,

Chris Thompson:

weren't proceeds of crime, weren't not proceeds of crimes,

Chris Thompson:

or too many negatives, if the upper, if the upper members of

Chris Thompson:

the if the Crimean can't prove a legitimate source of their

Chris Thompson:

assets, right, then I think it's, I don't think anyone's

Chris Thompson:

going to be against taking toys away from gangsters. Yeah.

Greg Dent:

Well, I think that's, that's probably the more

Greg Dent:

sympathetic approach to this, which is, you know, like the the

Greg Dent:

guy living in the $20 million mansion who has hundreds of

Greg Dent:

people selling little baggies of coke? Yeah, I don't like Coke.

Greg Dent:

Is my thing today, but I've mentioned it twice, being a

Greg Dent:

lawyer,

Chris Thompson:

our stereotypical Yeah, but crap, I

Chris Thompson:

went BMW to damn it. Oh, it's black, but the turn signals

Chris Thompson:

work. I use them all the time.

Greg Dent:

Yeah, so, but anyhow, I think that's that becomes a

Greg Dent:

much more sympathetic argument for general people

Chris Thompson:

to accept. I think, yeah. And one of the

Chris Thompson:

other reasons too is a lot of the times it's really hard, if

Chris Thompson:

not impossible, to get documents from other jurisdictions. Okay,

Chris Thompson:

so if you want to prove that that the particular source of

Chris Thompson:

funds for something was illegitimate and it comes from

Chris Thompson:

Saudi Arabia or Lithuania or, I think the Philippines, don't

Chris Thompson:

quote me on that one, though, like there's some jurisdictions

Chris Thompson:

where various law enforcement agencies in Canada have

Chris Thompson:

agreements with various law enforcement agencies around the

Chris Thompson:

world, both civil and criminal. Criminal, it's typically called

Chris Thompson:

an mlat, a mutual legal assistance treaty. It will take

Chris Thompson:

years, right? Okay? And so if you are a criminal, and you run

Chris Thompson:

your your funds through five countries, and it takes two

Chris Thompson:

years to get an mlat, and take it 10 years to figure out where

Chris Thompson:

the money came from, and that's just not feasible. So criminals

Chris Thompson:

know. Of that, and then they use that. And so these orders are an

Chris Thompson:

attempt to sort of level the playing field between the

Chris Thompson:

criminals that understand the financial obscurity system, or

Chris Thompson:

how to obscure finances, and law enforcement.

Greg Dent:

Which is, which is why? I mean, I guess if I, if I

Greg Dent:

go federal policing, would become a federal policing force

Greg Dent:

who had the tools like unexplained wealth orders is

Greg Dent:

probably better suited to fight some of these transactional

Greg Dent:

crimes, which is what you're suggesting. Well,

Chris Thompson:

I mean, we have federal police, we have the

Chris Thompson:

RCMP. I'm not sure that it's necessarily a lack of policing

Chris Thompson:

effort. I think it's just a function of how the system works

Chris Thompson:

like the international system, yeah, and I know the steps

Chris Thompson:

involved, that was at a conference the other day. They

Chris Thompson:

said it takes, you know, the the investigator has to draft an

Chris Thompson:

order, and then they send it, I think, to crown. And then that

Chris Thompson:

takes a while, and then it comes back with some corrections, and

Chris Thompson:

it goes back and forth, and it gets approved somewhere else,

Chris Thompson:

and then it has to go to some office, and then the office

Chris Thompson:

sends it. It all has to get officially translated into,

Chris Thompson:

like, Dutch or something. But then the lady who does the

Chris Thompson:

official Dutch translations is on a two week kayaking trip,

Chris Thompson:

and, like, I don't know Nunavut, or whatever it was, and so she

Chris Thompson:

has to come back. And then the translation happens, and it gets

Chris Thompson:

sent over to the Netherlands. And then, I don't know whatever

Chris Thompson:

Dutch guy does the translation. Like, it's this, it's nuts. And

Chris Thompson:

I kind of liken it to, this is my standard analogy. Do you know

Chris Thompson:

how tennis? This is how I understand tennis. It used to be

Chris Thompson:

played. So do you know where the numbers in tennis come from?

Chris Thompson:

Like the zero, 1530, 3040, okay, no. So it used to be that when

Chris Thompson:

you started, you both stood at like a line, which, let's call

Chris Thompson:

zero, okay, when you won a point, you went 15 feet ahead.

Chris Thompson:

Oh, and when you won that point, you went to 30 feet, you know,

Chris Thompson:

in that point, you went to 40 feet. And one, when you won that

Chris Thompson:

you won the match. That's kind, I feel that sort of like how the

Chris Thompson:

approvals process in law enforcement works. You start at

Chris Thompson:

line zero, and then you go with your supervisor, and then you

Chris Thompson:

hit the ball back and forth. And eventually you hit a winner.

Chris Thompson:

Then they approve it. You move up to line 15, which is the next

Chris Thompson:

level of approval. Then you hit the ball back and forth a bunch

Chris Thompson:

of times. Eventually you hit a winner. Then you go up to line

Chris Thompson:

30, and then, like line 40 is whatever director of the

Chris Thompson:

institution you're running, who has to ultimately sign off on

Chris Thompson:

this thing, and then who might actually get you somewhere all

Chris Thompson:

of a sudden, or who hits it back. And then you have to go

Chris Thompson:

back to line zero and start over again. That sounds terrible. It

Chris Thompson:

is. Yeah, I have said My job is 80% pretty good, 10% awesome,

Chris Thompson:

and 10% mind. I'm only tedious, and some of that is the mind

Chris Thompson:

Emily tedious part. It's just this endless series of back and

Chris Thompson:

forth right now that's not all the time. That's fairly rare.

Chris Thompson:

Most of the time, the stuff gets touched, like once or twice, but

Chris Thompson:

for something where it's like overseas requests are everyone

Chris Thompson:

knows they're a pain, and they take forever, and it's you're

Chris Thompson:

kind of coordinating among a bunch of different institutions

Chris Thompson:

and dealing with different languages in different time

Chris Thompson:

zones, and it's a pain. So these I explained wealth orders are

Chris Thompson:

kind of a means of leveling that playing field between the

Chris Thompson:

criminals and

Greg Dent:

investigate what right? Okay, and really making

Greg Dent:

the the transactional side of it a little bit a little bit

Greg Dent:

easier, makes sense? Yeah, no, no, that makes sense. Cool.

Greg Dent:

Well, thank you so much. This has been a really, kind of a

Greg Dent:

helpful analysis in unexplained wealth orders. Ultimately, I

Greg Dent:

think why they're important. And I think the case that that they

Greg Dent:

that they may not the civil liberties they might impact, let

Greg Dent:

me put it that way, and ending that whole balance of whether

Greg Dent:

they're good or bad, and necessary or evil or whatever, I

Greg Dent:

think we've kind of hopefully kind of gone through that enough

Greg Dent:

that our listeners gotta get a sense of that. So thank you so

Greg Dent:

much, Chris for for understanding the topic and

Greg Dent:

being willing to spend your time with me talking about it. Happy

Greg Dent:

to be here, and thanks for being also awesome. Thanks. Thank you.

Greg Dent:

Bye.

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