First, authorities moved to seize a house on British Columbia’s Salt Spring Island, bought for $1-million cash by the former spouse of a man accused of having ties to a global pump-and-dump stock scheme. Next, they went after millions of dollars held in the trust account of a recently disbarred lawyer on behalf of an alleged participant in a securities fraud involving a Bob Marley-themed coffee venture. Then there was the downtown Vancouver safety deposit box stuffed with cash, gold bars and luxury watches belonging to the co-founder of a defunct cryptocurrency exchange.
These asset seizures were carried out with a new legal tool that some Canadian provinces are using to go after the proceeds of alleged crimes. Unexplained wealth orders, as they’re known, put a reverse onus on the owner of the property in question to prove that he or she acquired it through legal means, or risk having it confiscated – making it easier for law enforcement to seize property without having to prove that a specific crime occurred. British Columbia and Manitoba have both recently implemented the tool, although Manitoba has yet to use it.
Proponents of unexplained wealth orders argue that they allow law enforcement to disrupt the operations of organized crime groups, which often employ sophisticated money laundering techniques that make it extremely challenging for investigators to follow the money. “This is a huge tool for law enforcement to really go after the funds of criminal organizati.