With the death of alleged hospital fraudster Arthur Porter last month, the mystery of where exactly he might have stashed as much as $5 million in suspected bribe money continues to frustrate police investigators.
Since Porter’s death on June 30, investigators and officials with the provincial agency have been tight-lipped about the missing loot. One lawyer with the agency would only speak to the Montreal Gazette on condition that the interview be conducted off the record, and even then, did not answer a reporter’s questions about the missing $5 million.
According to Gary Clement, a money-laundering expert and former director of the RCMP’s proceeds-of-crime division, told the Gazette money-launderers usually set up a “dummy company” in the Central American nation with the help of a local law firm. The dummy company is known as a bearer-share corporation, meaning that it issues shares in which ownership is impossible to trace. The bearer-share corporation, in turn, opens a Panamanian bank account in a country where depositing large amounts of cash is not frowned upon. The company can then wire dirty money around the world, washing it clean.
Read Aaron Derfel’s feature  “Where Are Porter’s Millions?’ at the Montreal Gazette