A Montrealer, who was already stuck in Ontario with a million dollars in cash in his vehicle, has just been arrested at the request of the United States for extradition for laundering millions of dollars of dirty money.
Mark Zirkind, 57, is believed to be part of a group of drug traffickers and money launderers who embezzled hundreds of millions of US dollars.
“Mendy” Zirkind appeared Thursday at the Montreal courthouse. He remained detained pending his release hearing, which will take place in the coming days.
His organization operates in particular in Canada, but also in New York, California, Mexico, Hong Kong and Israel, according to an affidavit filed as evidence by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
An investigation carried out by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) between 2017 and 2020, facilitated by a member of the group who became an informant, made it possible to trace the various actors.
This Orthodox Jew alone allegedly laundered approximately $4.4 million. He also allegedly implicated his brother Zalmund and his son Benzion in this scheme, it is mentioned in the summary of facts supporting the money laundering charges brought against him in New York.
His brother received seven years in prison in 2021 and his son one year, sentences to be served in the United States.
Phones listening
According to the DEA, Mark Zirkind coordinated the money laundering operations with the police informant. Then, Zirkind or members of his family “recovered large sums of money and sometimes sent photos of the money,” it says.
This photo of the money collected was sent by Zalmund Zirkind to a DEA informant in 2018.
Photo filed in the Court file
DEA agents were notably able to see Mark Zirkind receiving a large brown plastic bag in Brooklyn in 2018. Text messages consulted by the American federal agency subsequently showed that Zirkind would have transferred the 170,000 US dollars received from a Canadian account to another located in Hong Kong. .
Prison in Ontario
Mark Zirkind had already appeared in court in Canada, after being stuck with $1.1 million in his rental car during a trip between Toronto and Montreal in February 2014.
He was first stopped by a patrol officer for simply speeding on Highway 401. But the officers found bags filled with bills, in addition to traces of cocaine throughout the vehicle.
Convicted in 2017, he appealed the case, saying he did not know the money in his car was the proceeds of a crime.
He then said he thought the money was “Shoah Gelt.” These are funds owned by Jews who believe there will be another Holocaust and want to move their money to a safe place so that it will not be confiscated, as happened in the first Holocaust.
This argument, however, did not convince the judges, who confirmed his four-year prison sentence in 2019.
– With Nicolas Brasseur, Investigation Office
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