Who can initiate a criminal investigation in Canada? I saw an interesting story in the Canadian media the other day. Several federal cabinet ministers and some prominent members of Parliament have allegedly given tax money to a Canadian charity that is a branch of an international charity that has allegedly given money in turn to well-known terrorist organizations. Various other countries and some major banks have already broken all ties with the aforementioned international charity. Also, the prime minister himself has appeared in videos urging people to give money to the Canadian branch of the charity. Giving money to terrorist organizations is against Canadian law. If these claims are potentially true - and I don't know they are, not having seen the evidence, just heard it paraphrased by an alleged former intelligence agent - is there anything I can do as a concerned citizen to ensure that the claims are duly investigated by the relevant authorities? If so, what? I've lived in Canada all my life but I have had very little to do with the legal system and do not know which occurrences get investigated and who initiates the investigation. Do I need to contact the RCMP (federal police) and direct them to this story? Or contact a Crown attorney (prosecutor)? Or can I count on the relevant agencies to initiate an investigation themselves because they monitor the media?
In a nutshell: Anyone can initiate a prosecution in Canada by laying evidence of each element of the alleged crime before a Justice of the Peace. the Justice sets up a hearing with a Judge who will rule if the accused has a case to answer. If there is a case to answer then the State has the right to intervene by either taking over the prosecution or terminating it. If the State does not intervene then the private prosecutor follows the matter through. In more detail: http://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/userfiles/other/8090603-burns.pdf Things to note The state has immunity from being sued if the prosecution is without foundation - a private prosecutor doesn't. On the facts you state, you can't initiate a prosecution - having "heard it paraphrased by an alleged former intelligence agent" is not evidence of anything. Investigation Anyone can investigate anything they want for whatever reason they want so long as they act within the law. This is what journalists and private investigators do for a living.
All of this is illegal. You do not give a jurisdiction so I will use NSW, Australia as an example but many countries' laws have similar effect. Australian Consumer Law prohibits misleading and deceptive conduct: It is illegal for a business to engage in conduct that misleads or deceives or is likely to mislead or deceive consumers or other businesses. It doesn't matter that what you have said is strictly speaking factual - the way it has been said is likely to mislead or deceive. However, what you are proposing goes further and IMO crosses the line into fraud (s192E of the Crimes Act): 192E Fraud (1) A person who, by any deception, dishonestly: (b) obtains any financial advantage or causes any financial disadvantage, is guilty of the offence of fraud. Maximum penalty: Imprisonment for 10 years. (2) A person’s obtaining of property belonging to another may be dishonest even if the person is willing to pay for the property. In addition to the illegality, stealing other people's money is morally wrong by any reasonable standards of morality.
That sounds a lot like the German Antragsdelikt (literally "crime by request"). That is a crime (defined in the criminal code), that can only be prosecuted if the victim requests it. Antragsdelikt mostly applies to less serious crimes, such as slander or petty theft, while "serious" crimes, such as robbery or assault must always be prosecuted (Offizialdelikt). Also, there are many minor crimes (relatives Antragsdelikt) which are usually only prosecuted by request, but where the prosecution can also decide to press charges if it is in the "public interest" (usually because the act is deemed a serious infraction). Similar concepts exist in Austria and Switzerland.
It seems that your friend is taking part in a multi-level marketing scheme. However, this does not necessarily exclude a pyramid or snow ball scheme. Both can be illegal in Germany and Switzerland under the respective unfair business practices codes, because the systems do not rely on the sales of goods and services, but on the continuous recruitment of further sales persons. To clarify whether your friend's system is illegal, you could report the scheme to the competent watchdogs. In Germany the "Zentrale zur Bekämpfung unlauteren Wettbewerbs" in Bad Homburg is recommendable. As the company is operating from Switzerland, German law not be applicable without more. Therefore also contacting the Swiss authorities may be advisable. This seems to be the "Staatssekretariat für Wirtschaft SECO" in Bern.
If that which you describe in your comment ( Facebook post as only basis for warrantless search) is, and can be shown, to be the only basis for the search, and there was no evidence of a crime in plain view when they arrived.....then yes, it is likely the search and all evidence acquired from the search would be excludable. As to whether the individual could still be prosecuted, that depends if a case could be built independent of the evidence collected during the search.
It appears you would need to contact the Calgary courts directly to discover more about the case(s) as any case files will likely be held with them. It's possible that the case was dropped, or that they were found &quot;not guilty&quot; which would explain the lack of further news on them. I searched the Canadian Legal Information Institute's website for you but wasn't able to find any criminal cases involving them — only some civil cases around bankruptcy and creditor claims.
This issue was addressed in United States v. Meng, 2020 BCSC 785. The authority to extradite is via the extraditing state's treaty with the U.S. and its domestic implementing legislation. In Canada, this is the Extradition Act. Extradition requires consent of the extraditing state and for the requesting state to follow the extraditing state's domestic procedure. The question you raise is how sanctions of requesting state affect the interpretation of the domestic offence for the purpose of establishing the double criminality requirement. Critical in this case was that the charged offence was fraud against HSBC (albeit based on alleged concealment of sanctions violations). See para. 23: The double criminality question in the committal hearing is therefore whether Ms. Meng’s alleged conduct, had it occurred in Canada, would have amounted to fraud contrary to s. 380(1)(a) of the Criminal Code. Ms. Meng argued: that the conduct cannot amount to fraud because in essence the proposed prosecution is to enforce US sanctions laws against Iran, measures that are not part of Canadian law and which, indeed, Canada has expressly rejected. The Attorney General argued: that the double criminality analysis may properly take the US sanctions into account as part of the foreign legal backdrop against which the essential conduct is to be understood. The court agreed with the Attorney General: The effects of the US sanctions may properly play a role in the double criminality analysis as part of the background or context against which the alleged conduct is examined.
Promoting the comment to an answer based on the feedback. Canada is not going to extradite him but they may deport him if he committed any immigration fraud. Typically applications for Visa or Work Permit include many question on your history including "have you ever been convicted for a crime". So either he lied on the application or the Canada didn't care about his criminal record. If he lied, you may have a lever: contact the immigration fraud department https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/protect-fraud/report-fraud.html