Vancouver police have charged a second suspect in reference to the 2020 capturing loss of life of alleged cash laundering kingpin Jian Jun Zhu, Enterprise in Vancouver stories.
Jian Jun Zhu, above, died from a hail of bullets in September 2020. He was the proprietor of Silver Worldwide, a suspected money-laundering operation with hyperlinks to the drug commerce. (Picture: South China Morning Submit)
Yuexi Lei, also referred to as Alex Lei, 37, appeared in Richmond Provincial Courtroom Thursday. He’s charged with two counts of accent after the actual fact and one depend of accent after the actual fact to homicide. Police arrested him on March 10, in keeping with courtroom filings.
Authorities imagine Jian was the middle of an operation that washed lots of of tens of millions of {dollars} in drug cash by British Columbia casinos.
He was gunned down at a Japanese restaurant in Richmond, British Columbia, on September 18, 2020, and died the subsequent day within the hospital. His affiliate, Paul King Jin, additionally a suspected cash launderer, was injured within the capturing however survived.
Homicide Cost
In November 2021, police charged 23-year-old Richard Charles Reed with first-degree homicide in relation to the capturing. He’s accused of firing the bullet that killed Jiang.
Reed has additionally been charged with aggravated assault, possessing a firearm with an altered serial quantity, possessing a loaded, prohibited, or restricted firearm, illegal discharge of a firearm, and discharging a firearm with intent to wound/disfigure.
Lei is scheduled to seem in courtroom on Might 4 on unrelated stolen property and firearms offenses.
Jian owned Silver Worldwide along with his spouse Caixuan Qin. The enterprise ran as a forex alternate agency in Richmond. Nonetheless, investigators imagine it was really an underground financial institution linked to the worldwide drug commerce.
By means of British Columbia’s on line casino sector, the operation might have laundered as much as $250 million a yr. It was a main instance of what got here to be identified to the worldwide intelligence neighborhood because the “Vancouver Mannequin” of cash laundering.
Vancouver Mannequin
Sometimes, this includes underground banks receiving money from drug cartels and different prison outfits, paid an equal sum through financial institution switch. In the meantime, Chinese language residents who wish to circumvent strict controls on transferring cash out of China make funds into Chinese language financial institution accounts managed by the underground financial institution.
After they arrive in Vancouver, the Chinese language residents are paid in soiled money accepted by native casinos and transformed into chips, which may later be cashed out in examine kind.
Jian and Qin had been prosecuted in 2018 in what was billed as Canada’s greatest cash laundering case. Nevertheless it shortly fell aside when prosecutors inadvertently launched the title of a key authorities informant to the protection throughout a routine proof disclosure.
The choose decided that persevering with with the trial would put the witness “vulnerable to loss of life.”
