Accused in alleged $220 million underground bank and money laundering scheme fighting forfeiture

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Chen was arrested but not charged in the 2015 E-Pirate investigation.

The threshold for proving a civil claim is lower than for a criminal conviction, a balance of probabilities instead of beyond a reasonable doubt.

As part of the E-Pirate investigation, $2 million was seized at Silver International in a police raid on Oct. 15, 2015.

That same day, police seized $60,010 in bundled cash found in a black nylon bag hidden in the drum of a clothes dryer in Chan’s then-residence in Richmond on Lansdowne Road, according to court documents.

Also in the nylon bag was a wallet containing about $3,300 in cash in U.S., Taiwan and Hong Kong dollars, as well as Japanese yen, Chinese yuan and Burmese kyat.

The next day, $3,880 in cash was seized from Chan when he was arrested in his vehicle.

The forfeiture suit alleges that Chan, “lacking legitimate income,” in 2015 directed an accounting firm to prepare, on his behalf, fraudulent-employment letters and pay statements in order to support a mortgage financing.

Chen was nabbed in a separate 2015 RCMP investigation in Kelowna, which was dubbed E-Naos, on allegations of drug trafficking.

He was convicted in that case in 2019 of providing kilos of ecstasy that were later sold to an undercover officer over several months in 2015.

ghoekstra@postmedia.com

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