Former realtor linked to B.C. gangs facing money laundering charges
A former Metro Vancouver realtor who has been leasing luxury properties to B.C. gangsters is behind bars in the U.S. charged with international money laundering.
Omid Mashinchi, 35, appeared in a Boston courtroom last month and was ordered held pending trial.
U.S. authorities allege he wired hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug money over several months last year to banks in Massachusetts through one of his company’s accounts.
The indictment says Mashinchi knew the funds involved “represented the proceeds of crime” and “that such transportation, transmission and transfer was designed in whole or in part to conceal and disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership and the control of the proceeds of specified unlawful activity.”
The underlying crime alleged is “the manufacture, importation, sale and distribution of a controlled substance.”
The charges against Mashinchi were sworn in January, but remained under seal until his arrest in April as he landed at SeaTac International Airport on a flight from Vancouver. He was going to visit his parents in Sacramento.
There are no details in the U.S. allegations about the source of the criminal money.
A Postmedia investigation has found that Mashinchi has started at least three companies in B.C. since 2006, all related to the real estate industry. And for years, police say, Mashinchi has been associating with B.C. gangsters, including leasing them condos that were used both as stash houses and as residences.
Postmedia has learned that his company Mashinchi Investments, also known as the Residence Club, leased the luxury North Vancouver condo where Brothers Keepers boss Gavinder Grewal was shot to death last December.
And Mashinchi also leased out a West Vancouver house that was targeted in an unsolved drive-by shooting on October 8, 2017.
“Mashinchi is well-known to the policing community and has rented several properties to known gang members,” said Mike Porteous, a Vancouver police superintendent. “Many of these properties have been tied to criminal activity such as drug dealing and violent events including murder and drive-by shootings, which are gang-related.”
B.C.’s anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit has also come across Mashinchi and his properties in recent years.
“He has had for many years an association to the Wolf Pack,” Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said.
The Wolf Pack is a gang alliance consisting of some members of the Hells Angels, some Red Scorpion gangsters and some in the Independent Soldiers gang.
B.C. Attorney General David Eby has repeatedly raised concerns about organized crime laundering money through casinos and the province’s hot real estate market.
But the charges against Mashinchi suggest dirty cash could also be infusing property leasing and high-end rentals.
“This is the first time that I heard that leasing may be used or tied to people involved in organized crime to conceal transactions or to be involved with money laundering,” Eby said Friday. “It is another example of why the province has a responsibility to look very carefully at what’s happening in real estate.”
Mashinchi faces no criminal charges in B.C. nor has any record here.