[timr]

The article suggests this is money laundering. It would make sense to have fake borrowers with fake incomes as part of a layering operation.

Someone wants to get $large_sum out of China. They can't do this without raising lots of flags in both countries. So they set up an army of fake borrowers, have them take out fraudulent mortgages on real properties in Canada, pay down the mortgages, and sell the property to obtain clean money on the other end.

All the better if the property rises in value in the meantime due to enormous fraud.

[stevenwoo]

Not Canada, but before the pandemic caused rural housing prices to go up, there was a crime syndicate buying houses for marijuana grow operations and having the house pay for itself essentially until they got caught. https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/doj-raid-marijuana-g...

[avidiax]

The article doesn't seem to suggest that the mortgage holders are actually straw purchasers, but the facts seem to suggest this is at least sometimes true. How can a hairdresser service several mortgages without "income" from China?

[timr]

> The article doesn't seem to suggest that the mortgage holders are actually straw purchasers, but the facts seem to suggest this is at least sometimes true. How can a hairdresser service several mortgages without "income" from China?

The article explicitly says that the purpose is laundering via professional operators -- see the flowchart diagram toward the bottom of the piece.