A Burnaby, B.C., man has pleaded responsible to laundering cash tied to unlawful on-line hashish gross sales, a uncommon cash laundering conviction in a case that investigators say concerned tens of tens of millions of {dollars} moved by means of shell firms and private financial institution accounts in British Columbia and Alberta.
Harry Web optimization pleaded responsible in August to a Prison Code cost of cash laundering, in response to B.C. Supreme Courtroom paperwork reviewed by the Investigative Journalism Basis (IJF), which reported the plea on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026. The data describe Web optimization, now 32, as a mid-level supervisor in a community that prosecutors say laundered $156 million generated by on-line gross sales of unlawful hashish, principally by means of a web site known as Cheapweed. Web optimization has not but been sentenced.
What Web optimization admitted
In accordance with the IJF, Web optimization admitted to utilizing two numbered firms to open accounts at a dozen completely different banks and credit score unions, and to laundering greater than $14 million by means of these accounts. The community’s “cash mules” collected a share of deposits as a payment, whereas the remainder of the cash was paid out to a whole bunch of payees by means of financial institution drafts.
On paper, the mules claimed to run journey businesses, on-line auto elements retailers, magnificence shops and a music video manufacturing firm. In actuality, the accounts had been used to deposit e-transfers from Cheapweed clients.
An agreed assertion of info, reviewed by the prosecution and Web optimization’s lawyer, identifies the particular person operating the operation solely as “Tony,” described as Cheapweed’s CEO. Tony and different central members, who used codenames together with “China,” “Hong Kong,” “Marquis” and “MJ,” communicated with Web optimization and others by means of group chats and gave “day-to-day path” on opening new financial institution accounts, companies and bank cards and on transferring the cash, the paperwork say.
“Tony expanded his enterprise by means of recruiting new members of the scheme and by buying present hashish dispensaries,” the agreed assertion of info says, in response to the IJF. The data additionally state that on one event Tony “directed the usage of violence to self-discipline a scheme member who Tony believed stole from him,” and that Web optimization was conscious of the occasion.
Web optimization was not a part of the central group however was given particular tasks, the data say. For a number of months in 2019 he served as an administrator of Cheapweed’s web site, and in December 2019 he took over administration of a hashish dispensary operation in Edmonton that Tony had acquired. The paperwork additionally point out Web optimization ran his personal illicit dispensary below the identify “Dr. Herb.”
At an Aug. 31 court docket look, Web optimization’s lawyer, Hovan Patey, stated his consumer was “admitting all of the important parts of each offences,” the IJF reported.
The place the cash went
The court docket paperwork say cash collected by the community was despatched to 313 completely different events, together with regulation corporations, B.C. Hydro accounts related to hashish develop operations and luxurious automobile sellers. The decide redacted the payees’ names. The IJF has beforehand reported that among the cash went towards the acquisition of a derelict property in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood that the B.C. authorities later seized by means of civil forfeiture, and that payees included a Decrease Mainland firm the U.S. authorities has accused of importing fentanyl precursors.
How the case started
Web optimization was certainly one of seven individuals charged after an investigation by the RCMP Federal Policing Northwest Area’s Federal Monetary Crime Staff in Edmonton. In a January 30, 2025 information launch, the RCMP alleged that between September 2018 and August 2020, Web optimization laundered proceeds of crime from on-line transactions of illicit hashish in Alberta and British Columbia, as a part of a bunch that allegedly laundered roughly $47 million.
Police stated on the time that the community was made up of Alberta and B.C. numbered firms working as unregistered cash providers companies, which allegedly obtained, transferred or transformed proceeds of illicit hashish gross sales made by means of a wide range of on-line dispensaries. By tracing the e-mail addresses linked to e-Switch funds, officers recognized eight people who obtained a complete of $47 million in proceeds of crime, the RCMP stated.
Web optimization was arrested by the Vancouver Police Division on Dec. 30, 2024, and charged with laundering proceeds of crime below part 462.31 of the Prison Code, failing to register a cash providers enterprise with FINTRAC below the Proceeds of Crime (Cash Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, two counts of fee of an offence for a felony group, and unauthorized possession of hashish for the aim of promoting below the Hashish Act. The IJF reported that court docket data additionally say the RCMP arrested Web optimization in October 2020, when he was discovered with eight kilograms of hashish and a Taser in his Tesla. The Public Prosecution Service of Canada instructed the IJF that Web optimization has not entered a plea on the hashish possession-for-sale depend.
“This felony group operated all through western Canada to gather, switch and profit from roughly $47 million in proceeds of crime,” Insp. John Lamming, officer answerable for Northwest Area Monetary Integrity and Cybercrime in Edmonton, stated within the 2025 launch.
A uncommon cash laundering conviction
In accordance with the RCMP, 5 different individuals from Edmonton and Chilliwack, B.C., had already been convicted in 2024 of failing to register a cash providers enterprise with FINTRAC. They obtained conditional sentences of 9 to 12 months and had been ordered to forfeit quantities starting from greater than $50,000 to greater than $155,000 in proceeds of crime. A sixth particular person, from Brampton, Ont., was additionally charged with the identical offence.
The IJF famous that Web optimization was the one defendant who additionally confronted a Prison Code cash laundering cost, which carries a penalty of as much as 10 years in jail, and described the plea as a uncommon instance of Canadian police securing a conviction on that cost, one thing officers usually forgo due to the complexity of such investigations.
Unlawful on-line gross sales stay a problem
Practically eight years after legalization, unlawful on-line sellers proceed to compete with the regulated market. Well being Canada says authorized hashish merchandise are solely offered by means of retailers approved by provincial and territorial governments, other than registered medical sufferers shopping for immediately from federally licensed sellers. Among the many warning indicators of an unlawful retailer, the division lists sellers that ship hashish in every single place in Canada, skip age verification, provide referral bonuses and request cost by e-transfer or cryptocurrency reasonably than bank card.
The case provides to a gradual stream of enforcement actions in opposition to the illicit market throughout the nation, together with the Ontario Provincial Police’s current seizure of greater than $12 million in unlawful hashish from develop websites in Napanee and Haldimand County. No sentencing date for Web optimization was reported.
