Description
Canada enjoys a positive global reputation as a stable, affluent democracy with strong rule of law. Yet it is also among the most opaque jurisdictions when it comes to the ownership of companies and partnerships. These structures are particularly attractive to bad actors in need of fronts for their misdeeds. As a result, Canada has become a sought-after place to incorporate shell companies.
In our new report we examine who are the intermediaries who market Canada as a secrecy jurisdiction and make up ‘Snow Washing, Inc.’
Join us Tuesday, March 15th 11:00am - 12:00pm (EST) for this special event.
Panelists:
Maíra Martini is the Research and Policy Expert on corrupt money flows at the Transparency International Secretariat in Berlin (TI-S) and leads the TI movement work on illicit financial flows, anti-money laundering, and beneficial ownership transparency. She is the author of several TI reports on these issues. Maíra is part of the Global Anti-Corruption Consortium, a ground-breaking partnership with investigative journalists from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. She is also on the Steering Groups of OpenOwnership and the Anti-Corruption Data Collective. Prior to that, Maira worked on the Anti-Corruption Helpdesk, where she produced research briefs on anti-corruption and governance on a variety of issues and countries and led the establishment of TI’s Anti-Corruption Experts Network. Maira is a lawyer, a certified anti-money laundering specialist (CANS) and holds a Masters in public policy from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.
Rita Trichur is an award-winning journalist. She is a senior business writer and columnist with The Globe and Mail. She previously served as the newspaper’s Financial Services Editor. Rita returned to The Globe in July 2016 after spending about 2 ½ years as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. She primarily covered Canadian banks and insurance companies from Toronto, but also wrote a variety of other stories for the U.S. newspaper. Prior to The Wall Street Journal, Rita spent more than three years at The Globe, initially working as a general assignment reporter in the Report on Business before covering the telecom beat. Rita has also covered financial services and economics for the Toronto Star, and has held various roles at the Canadian Press and the Ottawa Sun. She got her first byline at age 6 when the Toronto Star published her short story about a fish-stealing cat and paid her $10. She has a Bachelor of Journalism and Political Science and a M.A. in Canadian Studies – both from Carleton University in Ottawa.
Graham Barrow has worked in financial services for the past twenty-five or more years, latterly providing expertise to a number of high-profile banks in relation to their financial crime control frameworks. He has written the due diligence policy for one global bank and contributed significant expertise to many others.
He also works with global journalistic consortia on the reporting of “real world” financial crime stories.
Graham is well known in the industry as one half of “The Dark Money Files” podcast which has rapidly acquired pre-eminent status within Financial Crime Compliance departments and beyond for explaining a wide range of technical subjects in a light hearted and easy to understand manner.
Graham regularly speaks at in-house and public events to raise awareness of the close links between financial crime and the organised criminal gangs and corrupt individuals who are responsible for so much of the dirty money entering the financial system and, in particular, the role of UK entities in enabling this.
Adam Ross is a co-founder and partner of Templeton Research, an investigative research firm. He has over a decade of experience in business intelligence and investigations, and specializes in open-source intelligence and asset tracing. He has worked extensively with government and private sector clients to tackle issues related to money laundering and corruption. Adam began his career as an investigative researcher for leading anti-corruption and human rights organizations. He is the author of three groundbreaking reports for Transparency International Canada on issues related to opaque ownership and money laundering risk, and is a member of TI Canada’s Beneficial Ownership Working Group.