Court rules against B.C. man accused of money laundering
Lawyer argues U.S. police may have been working undercover illegally in Canada
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled against a local man charged with laundering millions of drug profits in the U.S.
Glenn Harley Sheck tried to get an extradition application by the U.S. thrown out on the grounds that American police worked undercover in Canada during their investigation, which his lawyer argued might have been illegal.
Sheck also requested additional disclosure about how the RCMP assisted the Americans when they met him on three occasions in Metro Vancouver in 2012.
But Justice Nathan Smith ruled the Americans were in Canada legally and the evidence they gathered on this side of the border was only a small part of the case against Sheck.
“The U.S. agents entered Canada legally and acted with at least the knowledge and assistance of Canadian authorities. Further, the Canadian-gathered evidence is relatively insignificant in the context of all of the alleged transactions the requesting state relies upon,” Smith said in a decision released this week. “Because of that relative insignificance, there is no basis on which to suggest that defects in how that evidence was gathered would sufficiently taint the entire process to require the exceptional remedy of a stay.”
Sheck’s case will now go to a “committal hearing ” to determine whether he should be sent to the U.S. for trial.
Sheck allegedly co-ordinated dozens of transfers of cash between June 2007 and April 2012, believed to be the proceeds of a drug trafficking organization.
He also boasted to the undercover officer about being a bigtime B.C. gangster, about funding terrorism and about corrupting officials, according to the “record of the case” filed to support the extradition request.
The money-laundering offences are alleged to have occurred while Sheck was out on bail facing a firearms possession charge on which he was eventually convicted and sentenced to 18 months in jail.
“The U.S. alleges 26 transactions in which undercover (Homeland Security Investigations) agents and a ‘co-operating witness’ received and transferred large amounts of cash on instructions from Mr. Sheck. Most of those transactions involved instructions, contained in electronic messages, that money be picked up at various locations in the United States and delivered to locations in California,” Smith noted in his ruling.
“There are three alleged transactions in which cash was received in Canada. Mr. Sheck argues that, in receiving that cash, the (Homeland Security) agent and the co-operating witness committed a criminal offence unless they were acting under the direction of Canadian police.”
Smith quoted from the allegations listed in the record of the case about the Canadian transactions.
The first B.C. meeting took place between Sheck and the American officer on Feb. 9, 2012, “to discuss the seizure by U.S. law enforcement of $359,000 following one of the transactions alleged to have taken place in the U.S.,” Smith noted.
At a second meeting in Surrey a few days later, Sheck gave the U.S. agent a bag containing $29,680 to be deposited in a U.S. bank account.
“At the same meeting, Mr. Sheck is alleged to have said that he had a friend who needed $800,000 moved to the Dominican Republic,” Smith said.
The case record said Sheck handed the agent $167,500 at a Vancouver meeting on Feb. 21, 2012.
“Even if evidence of the Canadian transactions is excluded, it would not affect the requesting state’s case in relation to the other 23 transactions,” Smith said.