Experts warn that for the top levels of the drug trade, civil forfeitures are considered as just another cost item when doing business
On an unseasonably hot September day in 2023, a Surrey police officer spotted Daniel Cluett on an electric standup scooter, helmetless and allegedly riding into oncoming traffic.
RCMP officers caught up with him outside the Lookout Shelter on 135A Avenue, where they alleged he was hanging with “other individuals in front of a No Loitering sign.”
They ran his name in a police database and learned that “he was the suspect in a file from the night before where a firearm was pointed at an individual and had extensive drug and weapon possession files.”
They searched him for “officer safety” and found $1,525, US$102 and small amounts of fentanyl, crystal meth and crack cocaine.
The cash is the subject of a lawsuit filed by the director of civil forfeiture last May — the fifth naming Cluett as a defendant since 2018.
The longtime criminal and substance user is tied with another convicted B.C. trafficker as the most-frequent civil-forfeiture defendant in B.C.
Figures provided by the Public Safety Ministry shows that between 2006 and November 2024, the provincial civil forfeiture office filed 613 claims that involved 275 repeat defendants.
That’s out of a total 2,670 civil forfeiture claims filed in that period, resulting in about $190 million forfeited to the B.C. government.
Most of the repeat defendants have had just two seizure cases filed against them. But a few, like Cluett, have faced several.
When the Civil Forfeiture Act was launched in April 2006 as a tool to take ill-gotten assets from criminals, then solicitor general John Les lauded it.
“This law will help us take the profit out of organized crime and other illegal activities and will also let us help the victims of those crimes,” Les said at the time.
But with hundreds of repeat defendants, some are asking if the program has simply become another line item in the ledger for those in the drug trade, money laundering, and other illicit businesses.
The cost of doing business?
Richmond Councillor Kash Heed, a former police officer and provincial solicitor general, said B.C.’s civil forfeiture law has not deterred the highest level of organized crime from operating here.
“There is so much money being made from illicit proceeds, mainly attached to the drug trade and money laundering, that civil forfeiture is going to be the cost of doing business for the people that are higher up the ladder,” he said. “They’re still making money. They’re still making a heck of a lot of money.”
And he said it’s easier to target the proceeds of less-sophisticated criminals like Cluett, who aren’t strategizing on how to evade civil forfeiture laws.
Calvin Chrustie, a security expert and retired RCMP superintendent who worked on transnational organized crime investigations for decades, agrees.
“This particular tool is often used for low-hanging fruit,” he said. “Civil forfeiture has a very limited impact on the higher-level threat actors in Canada.”
Phil Tawtel, the executive director of B.C.’s civil forfeiture office, said that while his agency handles more cases involving lower-level criminals like Cluett, they’re usually resolved quickly and inexpensively. More complex cases involving major players can be lengthy and resource-intensive.
Because case referrals come from police agencies, his staff are not choosing their targets.
“We simply receive the files they send us and, not surprisingly, we deal with a high volume of low value files and a low volume of high value files. That is just the nature of the drug pyramid, right? You have many, many street workers, less street managers, and then less owners of the organization,” he said.
“Not surprisingly, the pyramid of a drug organization reflects the criminal files the police work on, which in turn reflects the files that we get from the police.”
Arrests, then lawsuits
Months before the September 2023 incident that led to lawsuit No. 5 against Cluett, he was arrested by Transit Police after attack that left two people with stab wounds. He was carrying $1,285.
Officers searched his Surrey residence and found another $8,725 and various quantities of fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine and drug packaging paraphernalia, according to the fourth civil forfeiture lawsuit filed against him.
Police also found four firearms, including a rifle with a sawed-off barrel and a round in the chamber. There were also shotgun shells duct taped to an improvised explosive device, the lawsuit alleged.
Police also discovered body armour, ammunition, rifle magazines and gun parts, as well as a 3D printer.
The lawsuit, filed on Jan. 10, 2024, said the cash should be forfeited to the B.C. government because it was obtained through crimes including trafficking, possession of a prohibited firearm and money laundering.
Lawsuits 1, 2 and 3 all stemmed from police stops of Cluett in 2018.
Mission RCMP seized $3,025 on July 17 after going to a car crash. “Stacks of money were observed near the male passenger,” the statement of claim said. Crack cocaine, scales and tablets were found.
A month later, he was pulled over in Whistler for a burnt-out front headlight. Police observed “in plain view” an open wallet with “a large amount of currency in $50 and $20 bills.” Meth and steroids were found in the truck, along with two machetes, a baton, four knives, bear spray and drug paraphernalia. Police seized $8,200.
In September, Surrey RCMP were at Cluett’s room at the Sheraton Hotel investigating suspected drug trafficking. Officers found almost $18,000 in cash, plus fentanyl, cocaine, magic mushrooms, GHB and cutting agents. There were score sheets to keep track of drug transactions. A Pringles chips container in the room had a false bottom.
Cluett, who turns 40 in March, has faced numerous criminal charges over the years. He is before the courts on several, including the most recent — laid in August — alleging he was importing or exporting controlled substances in Richmond.
Mid-level trafficker hit with five lawsuits
The convicted trafficker tied with Cluett for the dubious distinction of being most sued by the B.C. director of civil forfeiture is Jason Thomas Conrad, who in August 2023 was named as a defendant in his fifth case.
Earlier that year, Vancouver police seized more than 15 kilograms of fentanyl and more than $300,000 in cash from his downtown condo. And they took his 2022 Tesla, which the B.C. government also wants to keep as a proceed of crime.
In addition to the fentanyl, the Vancouver Police Department found methamphetamine, and powdered and crack cocaine — all “bundled or packaged in a manner consistent with drug trafficking.” The seized cash “was bundled or packaged in a manner not consistent with standard banking practices” and samples of it tested positive for “fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine,” the lawsuit said.
Conrad also had several cellphones, more than two kilograms of cocaine, and an electric-shock baton.
Conrad, who turned 45 on Wednesday, was first named in a 2010 civil forfeiture lawsuit after police found $13,170 inside his home, then in Chemainus, along with drug trafficking equipment. The case was resolved with a consent order, paying the government $10,500 of the cash, with the rest paid to his lawyer.
He was also named in a January 2021 case after Surrey RCMP stopped a vehicle in which Conrad was a passenger and found a backpack with almost $60,000 inside. He denied the cash was his.
Another civil forfeiture lawsuit was filed in May 2021, stating that Conrad’s then-roommate was stopped while driving a Mercedes-Benz SUV owned by Conrad. Police found $66,500 in the trunk, which the associate said was his. In 2023, some of the cash was forfeited to the government, while the rest was paid to the associate through his lawyer.
Conrad and two others were listed as defendants in an April 2022 civil forfeiture stemming from an investigation by the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit and the North Cowichan-Duncan RCMP into drug trafficking in Duncan. All three face charges of possession for the purpose of trafficking.
Tawtel doesn’t believe the fact there are so many repeat defendants means civil forfeiture is not working. Some people are sued once and never resurface.
Then you have “those ones that continue to engage the system. … They will just keep doing it till the day they die,” Tawtel said.
While Cluett would be considered at the street-level of the drug trade and Conrad would be mid-level, others named as defendants several times by the director of civil forfeiture are closer to the top — with the province sometimes going after millions in assets.
Civil forfeiture but no criminal charges
Paul King Jin, who has been accused of being an international money launderer, is still a defendant, along with others, in three civil forfeiture lawsuits involving almost $28 million worth of Lower Mainland real estate, as well as millions in cash and other assets.
The first lawsuit against Jin, filed in the spring of 2019, said a Richmond condo, a West Vancouver house, a Porsche and almost $5 million in cash should be forfeited as proceeds of crime.
Jin was a target in B.C.’s biggest money laundering probe, called E-Pirate. He has faced a long list of allegations: that he and his wife allegedly brought suitcases, boxes and bags filled with illicit cash to Silver International, the underground bank investigated in the probe; that he received nearly $27 million from the now-defunct bank over a four-month period in 2015; and that Jin ran illegal gambling in Richmond that netted at least $32 million that same year.
Yet he has not faced criminal charges after two major police investigations over the past decade.
A second forfeiture lawsuit was filed in 2020, claiming a large Richmond commercial building in which Jin ran a gym should be handed to the government. The World Champion Club has since closed, but the value of the 31,000-square-foot building on the banks of the Fraser River has risen to more than $13 million.
Civil forfeiture lawsuit No. 3 against Jin was filed in 2022, alleging he was the real owner of 12 apartments at 3506 West 4th Avenue, a neighbouring unit at 3504 West 4th, and a house at 2420 Haywood Ave. in West Vancouver — together assessed this year at more than $10 million.
“Jin launders proceeds of unlawful activity using British Columbia real property registered in the name of or controlled by others,” the lawsuit said.
Just this week, Tawtel’s office filed an application for a default judgment against Jin and his wife for the properties listed in the 2019 lawsuit, noting that no lawyer has responded to the civil forfeiture office since August. That application is to be heard later this month.
Not a deterrent
Chrustie, the former head of the B.C. RCMP’s organized crime unit, told Postmedia that civil forfeiture laws don’t deter those believed to be at the top in criminal organizations.
At the higher levels, “it’s just a corporate risk factor that’s included in the profit margins,” Chrustie said. “They are not going to prevent or preclude these people from doing this.
“I think where civil forfeiture may have some effect … is in the gang world,” he said.
Chrustie has been vocal about the need for changes to the law to let Canadian police exchange more information with their international counterparts and to make transnational criminal prosecutions more manageable.
“Out of desperation, civil forfeiture is being used in the absence of other legal tools to mitigate the threat of transnational organized crime to Canada,” Chrustie said.
Court challenge of new tool
Tawtel admits the bigger criminal players have the resources to hide and shift assets and change how they do business to avoid being targeted by civil forfeiture.
“The drug traffickers who launder funds are getting more sophisticated, not less sophisticated, and we need the tools, the legislative tools and the resources to investigate and chase down and find those assets that are hidden,” he said. “We are limited in B.C. to the assets that are hidden in B.C. That said, we can share information with our colleagues in other provinces and in other jurisdictions to pursue those assets with the permission of the police investigators.”
So far, applications have been made for four orders. The first application will be heard in court in April, Tawtel said.
“It’s taken a long time to get there. Will it be a game changer? Well, obviously it’s in front of the courts right now. We’re optimistic that they will survive because of all the work that we’ve done in preparing. We took it on understanding it would be challenged from the outset, but we have to wait to hear from the court.”
Heed said gangs and crime groups in the province have evolved faster than the laws designed to deal with them.
“As soon as we come up with an effective tool, they come up with something else,” Heed said. “We should always be thinking three years ahead from where we are now.”