A Richmond, B.C. karaoke club bartender faces up to 22 months in jail for laundering nearly half a million dollars for undercover police officers posing as international cocaine traffickers.
A Crown prosecutor told a provincial court judge Thursday that Alexandra Joie Chow will be the first person sentenced in B.C. for “pure money laundering” since the end of the Cullen commission, a high-profile public inquiry into the problem more than three years ago.
At Chow’s sentencing hearing in Richmond, prosecutor David Hainey cited the commission’s conclusions on the illicit economics that underpin B.C.’s criminal underworld as he called for the 37-year-old to serve time behind bars — despite her lawyer’s call for a conditional sentence that would see her handed some form of house arrest.
“This is someone providing a professional money laundering service to people representing themselves as international cocaine traffickers,” Hainey told provincial court Judge Richard Browning.
“This province has a documented history with money laundering after much money and time spent on the Cullen commission and a conditional sentence does not adequately represent the condemnation of the community.”
Suspicions of loan sharking
Chow was arrested in November 2021 following an investigation by B.C.’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit’s joint illegal gaming investigation team into another person, a man suspected of money laundering, loan sharking and extortion.
Hainey said police watched as the man was seen attending the Richmond karaoke bar where Chow worked and leaving with what appeared to be a weighted bag. Police launched a sting to get a cash loan from the man, but an undercover officer, established a relationship with Chow instead.
“Although she tried to convince him ‘not to get involved with these people,’ she eventually agreed to initiate a cash loan in exchange for vehicles as collateral,” Hainey said.
After securing a loan, the undercover officers told Chow they needed a way to legitimize large amounts of cash. She agreed to convert bundles of bills into clean bank drafts made out to a numbered company in exchange for a five per cent commission.
In the months that followed, Hainey said Chow conducted nine money laundering transactions involving bundles of cash worth as much as $70,000 each. She also said commission would be lower on amounts over $100,000.
She told the undercover officers she only took one per cent of the commission for herself as others needed to be paid out — including those whose bank accounts were used to issue the drafts.
“The individuals providing the bank drafts were ‘clean’,” Hainey told the judge. “She told [the undercover officers] that one of these people who provided the bank drafts worked at a bank.”
‘She became trapped’
Although Chow was arrested in November 2021, she wasn’t charged until nearly two years later, when police issued a news release detailing an investigation into her and a 49-year-old man.
Police said they raided properties in Richmond and Burnaby, B.C., seizing score sheets with client names and payment due dates as well as bank drafts, cellular phones and high-end vehicles.
Charges have never been announced against the man, but B.C.’s director of civil forfeiture initiated proceedings against Chow seeking to seize her 2008 Porsche Cayman as part of the proceeds of crime.
Hainey suggested Chow lacked insight into her crimes — but her lawyer, Josh Oppal, told the judge his client had taken responsibility for her actions, despite telling the author of a presentence report she felt she had been trapped by police.
“Entrapped in a base level sense is a way someone could describe an undercover police operation,” Oppal said.
“She became trapped in that and those are the circumstances.”
‘Sorry that this happened’
Hainey said Chow deserves a prison sentence ranging between 18 and 22 months. While Oppal didn’t disagree with the proposed length of sentence, he said Chow should serve her time in the community instead of behind bars.
Oppal told the court Chow — who has no prior criminal record — was born in Toronto but lived in Hong Kong with her parents between the ages of five and 13.
“At that point she saw more of [the] family’s housekeeper than either of the parents,” Oppal said.
The lawyer said Chow maintains a close relationship with her parents, who now live in Richmond, though they are unaware of the charges against her. She works as a sous-chef at a hotel and still pulls the occasional shift at the karaoke bar where she first encountered police.
Oppal said Chow would be a good candidate for a conditional sentence, but Hainey said prison time was needed to send a message of deterrence and denunciation for the money laundering that drives B.C.’s drug economy.
The prosecutor said Chow was more than a mere courier or mule for a sophisticated operation and was under no illusions that — as far as she knew — the men she was dealing with were not international cocaine traffickers.
Hainey included the executive summary from the inquiry headed by Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen as part of his submissions. The report called money laundering “a significant problem deserving of serious attention from government, law enforcement, and regulators.”
“Money laundering has, as its origin, crime that destroys communities — such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and fraud. These crimes victimize the most vulnerable members of society,” Cullen wrote.
“Money laundering is also an affront to law-abiding citizens who earn their money honestly and pay their fair share of the costs of living in a community.”
Chow spoke directly to the judge at the end of the day’s sentencing proceedings, saying she was unaware of the impact of money laundering on the community where she lives and works.
“I’m so sorry that this happened,” she said. “I just didn’t know this is that serious until that happened.”
Browning reserved his decision until November.
