Canadian federal prosecutors will proceed by direct indictment within the case towards two males accused of participation within the homicide of a infamous on line casino cash launderer, Richmond Information studies.
Zhu (left) was gunned down as he dined with suspected cash launderer Paul King Jin (proper) on the Manzo Japanese restaurant in Richmond. Zhu died a day later. Jin was injured however survived. (Picture: On line casino.org)
Richard Charles (Ricky) Reed is charged with the first-degree homicide of Jian Jun Zhu, who was gunned down as he dined on the Manzo Japanese restaurant in Richmond, Metro Vancouver. Codefendant Yuexi Lei is charged as an adjunct after the very fact.
To proceed with direct indictment implies that the instances will likely be expedited on to trial, circumventing preliminary hearings to evaluate enough proof. This particular energy can solely be utilized by the Lawyer Normal of Canada or Deputy Lawyer Normal in “circumstances involving critical violations of the legislation and the place it’s the public curiosity to take action.”
Such conditions might embody however are usually not restricted to the place an investigation is ongoing or the place witnesses might have been intimidated or threatened, based on the Public Prosecution Service of Canada’s web site.
Sgt. David Lee of the Built-in Murder Investigation Workforce mentioned that after Reed was charged final November, further folks have been concerned within the crime, and the investigation continued.
Drug Cash
Authorities consider Zhu was the axis of a large-scale cash laundering operation. That enterprise allegedly washed tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} by Vancouver-area casinos.
He was shot as he dined with Paul King Jin, additionally a suspected cash launderer, on September 18, 2020. He died the subsequent day within the hospital. Jin was injured within the assault however survived.
Zhu owned foreign money change agency Silver Worldwide in Richmond together with his spouse, Caixuan Qin. Prosecutors consider Silver was a entrance for an underground financial institution with hyperlinks to the South American drug commerce and the fentanyl factories of China’s Guangdong Province.
The operation might have laundered as a lot as $250 million per yr by casinos. It took soiled money from drug gangs and lent to excessive rollers on journeys from China, desperate to bypass strict controls on transferring cash out of their homeland.
Presently, BC casinos have been too prepared to simply accept giant quantities of money in low denomination payments. The Chinese language excessive rollers might gamble minimally earlier than changing their chips into test type.
Silver would use a community of Chinese language financial institution accounts to obtain funds from excessive rollers and to pay the prison gangs.
Issues Fall Aside
Zhu and Qin have been charged in 2017, and the case was billed as Canada’s largest ever cash laundering prosecution. It culminated in Operation E-Pirate, a large RCMP investigation into prison cash laundering networks.
However the case fell aside in 2019 due to a procedural error. Prosecutors inadvertently disclosed the identify of a key secret authorities witness throughout a typical proof disclosure. Federal prosecutors decided that to proceed would place the witness at “excessive threat of dying,” and the decide stayed the case.
