Lecture 8

Question 1

What is a shell company?

Answer 1

A shell corporation is a company or corporation has no significant assets or business operations. A flexible form of enterprise that blends elements of partnerships and structures. Often they only exist on paper without an office or employees.

Question 2

t or f, in Canada, private corporations are not required to disclose who owns / operates / exerts control over a legal entity, arrangement, or property.

Answer 2

true - shell companies do this

Since Canada allows a nominee to run the business of an anonymous owner.

Question 3

t or f, in 2017, Canada made new measures to increase ownership transparency of companies

Answer 3

true

Question 4

Whats the difference between public and private companies in Canada?

Answer 4

Public companies must disclose all information to major share-holders. Private companies only inform the board of directors who are chosen by the owner. This allows private ownership to shadow the owner.

Question 5

T or f, If Canada does not strip away private anonymity and form a public registration for beneficial ownership, it could become a beacon for the corrupt

Answer 5

true

Question 6

As other countries become financially stricter, Canada’s lax laws may be a financial safe haven if not otherwise changed

Answer 6

yes

Question 7

what is snow washing

Answer 7

the idea that when moving assets into the Canadian economy, the money will be wiped clean like snow –> due to the opaque nature of beneficial ownership.

Question 8

Corporate entities acquired over 30 billion in GTA housing since 2008… how? The vast majority of these houses were bought by private companies with no info on the beneficiary owner. How do we solve this.

Answer 8

Require beneficial owners of real estate to identify themselves to land title authorities, and make that information available to the public in an open data format. Disclosure of beneficial ownership should be a prerequisite for any property transfer.
Require all companies and trusts registered or transacting in Canada to identify their beneficial owners, and publish that information in a central publicly available registry.

Question 9

What are the 4 types of intimidation that organized crime syndicates use?

Answer 9

1. protection
2. extortion
3. selling items
4. refusal to pay

Question 10

Explain Protection

Answer 10

Protection money is a fee that organizations pay to the cartel to ensure they will not be disturbed by that cartel or others. This is tied with territorial rights.

Question 11

Explain Extortion

Answer 11

This is sporadic and spontaneous demand for money. Here no service (protection) is given. This is obtaining something by force or threat.

Question 12

Explain Selling Items

Answer 12

This involves gang members selling items such as coffee, produce, etc. to business’s.

Question 13

Explain Refusal to Pay

Answer 13

Here, gang members will refuse to pay for the service or good. This is called reciprocal face-giving –> the action represents much more than the material gain.

Question 14

Explain systemic extortion and Casual Extortion.

Answer 14

systemic –> practiced routinely and is core to the business
casual –> episodic, not spread over a territory, not routinely

Question 15

explain parasitic, symbiotic, predatory extortion

Answer 15

parasitic –> demand for payments over a long period of time
symbiotic –> both reap some benefits, such as protection for the victim
predatory –> very large payment demanded once

Question 16

Those who monopolize violence must supply protection as a public good?

Answer 16

true this is the Mafia way

Question 17

What is the enterprise syndicate? What is the power syndicate?

Answer 17

Enterprise –> provides illicit goods / services on a regular basis: e.g. a narcotics wholesaler
Power –> a criminal group that regulates relations between various enterprises. This is an organization / business that fixes prices of goods, allocates markets, sets policy, etc.

Question 18

Compare the state and the Mafia in terms of public protection.

Answer 18

The state provides protection as a public good to all citizens. Mafia provides it as an entrepreneur-based system. Importantly, entrepreneurs rely on the demand staying high for the good to be of value. –> i.e. they must ensure violence exists in society.

Question 19

What is a venture?

Answer 19

A transient criminal activity for gaining a profit such as robbing a bank.

Question 20

What is Economic globalization?

Answer 20

Economic globalization refers to the increasing interdependence of world economies as a result of the growing scale of cross-border trade of commodities and services, flow of international capital and wide and rapid spread of technologies.

Question 21

t or f, globalization has helped crime prosper

Answer 21

true

Question 22

What is the deep-web?

Answer 22

A term used to explain a class of content on the internet which is not indexed by search engines.

Question 23

what is the onion router?

Answer 23

this is a network that guarantee’s anonymous and untraceable access to the deep-web. These are rogue “top-level-domains”

Question 24

what was the BM silk road?

Answer 24

from 2011 - 2013, there was an underground website called the silk-road. during this time, a lot of illegal transactions took place here.

Question 25

who was Ross Ulbricht?

Answer 25

the owner and operator of Silk Road who was also known as Dread Pirate Roberts.

Question 26

Who was Roger Thomas Clark?

Answer 26

he worked with Ross Ulbricht on the Silk Road

Question 27

What was project Oriver

Answer 27

The RCMP discovered that an organized crime group was using an off-shore gambling website, Platinum Sports Book, to launder proceeds generated from illegal activity.

Question 28

What is the Dark Web?

Answer 28

A space that allows anonymous transactions with untraceable account addresses.