B.C.'s director of civil forfeiture has filed an unexplained wealth order in an attempt to seize cash, gold bars, luxury watches and jewelry in a safety deposit box belonging to the co-founder of a notorious B.C.-based cryptocurrency exchange scam.
B.C.'s director of civil forfeiture has filed an unexplained wealth order in an attempt to seize a quarter-million dollars in cash, 45 gold bars, luxury watches and jewelry that were contained in a safety deposit box belonging to the co-founder of a notorious B.C.-based cryptocurrency exchange scam.
Documents filed in B.C. Supreme Court say the items are the proceeds of crimes committed by Michael Patryn, who along with Gerald Cotten founded Quadriga Coin Exchange.
Cotten's mysterious death in India in 2018 hastened the discovery of an estimated $215 million in missing investor funds from Quadriga. In 2019, the company was put into court-ordered bankruptcy.
An investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission later determined Quadriga was a fraud and Ponzi scheme.
Patryn, who also goes by Michael Dhanani, Omar Dhanani and Omar Patryn, was last known to be in Thailand, according to the claim.
B.C. Solicitor General Mike Farnworth said this is the third unexplained wealth order filed in B.C. since changes were made to the Civil Forfeiture Act last year to allow their use.
Unexplained wealth orders require people to explain how they acquired their wealth and property if there is suspicion of criminal activity.
"Through this action, we are demonstrating again that criminals will have to prove that their assets are the proceeds of lawful activity and not financial crime," Farnworth said in a statement.
According to the claim, the RCMP executed a search warrant on Patryn's safety deposit box at a downtown Vancouver bank in June 2021, seizing:
According to the claim, birth certificates, name change certificates, credit cards and cheques in Patryn's various names were also in the safety deposit box, along with a Ruger 1911 .45 calibre pistol and ammunition.
Civil forfeiture has existed in B.C. since 2006, allowing the province to confiscate people's property without any criminal charges attached.
It's estimated Quadriga duped over 76,000 clients. Ernst & Young, Quadriga's bankruptcy trustee, was only able to recover $46 million of the $215 million owed to investors.
Karin Larsen is a former Olympian and award winning sports broadcaster who covers news and sports for CBC Vancouver.
Es gibt sie noch, die guten Nachrichten, wenn auch im Kleinen. In Köln müssen Schwarzfahrende, die dabei erwischt wurden und daraufhin ein fälliges Bußgeld nicht bezahlen konnten, ab sofort nicht mehr ins Gefängnis. Das traf primär ärmere Menschen. Das Geld wird freilich dennoch eingetrieben, aber niemand muss dafür mehr ins Gefängnis.
Auch künftig wird zwar eine Strafe in Höhe von 60 Euro fällig, mehr aber nicht. „Die bisherige Praxis sah so aus, dass gegen eine Person, die dreimal innerhalb eines Jahres oder vier Mal innerhalb von zwei Jahren aufgefallen ist, Anzeige erstattet wurde. Dabei darf der letzte Vorgang allerdings nicht länger als drei Monate zurückliegen. Das entfällt jetzt“, so Matthias Pesch, Leiter der Unternehmenskommunikation bei den Kölner Verkehrsbetrieben (KVB).Es gebe aber weiter die Möglichkeit, das erhöhte Beförderungsentgelt von 60 Euro auf zivilrechtlichem Weg einzuklagen. „Von dieser Möglichkeit werden wir auch weiterhin Gebrauch machen“, so der Sprecher der KVB.
Auch auf Bundesebene wird darüber wohl nachgedacht. An der Zeit dafür wäre es ja mal.
"The strategic reserve is holding its lowest amount of maple syrup since 2008," Simon Doré-Ouellet, the deputy director general of the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, told the BBC. [...]
The amount of maple syrup in the national reserve - stored in tens of thousands of barrels in several warehouses across Quebec - has dwindled significantly since 2020. That year, the reserve had more than 103 million pounds. Now, the amount in the reserve is only 7% of what it was four years ago. [...]
Canada is coming out of one of its warmest winters on record. Temperatures in December, January and February were the warmest since record-keeping began in 1948.
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