Canada-wide warrant issued for oil-and-gas fixer named in Panama Papers

An Alberta businessman who quietly teed up hundreds of millions of dollars in oilpatch deals is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant after he failed to appear in court on tax-evasion charges stemming from the Panama Papers. Calgary's Wentao Yang is the first person known to be charged in Canada in relation to the huge 2016 leak of tax-haven financial records.

Canada-wide warrant issued for oil-and-gas fixer named in Panama Papers CRA accused Western Canada's Wentao Yang of evading more than $860,000 in tax on oil deal consulting fees A Western Canadian businessman who facilitated hundreds of millions of dollars in deals for Chinese investors to buy Canadian oilpatch assets is wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant after he failed to show up for court multiple times on tax-evasion charges stemming from some of those deals and from the Panama Papers leak. A bench warrant was issued for Wentao Yang in Alberta provincial court in December, which was upgraded yesterday to a Canada-wide warrant in Alberta's Court of King's Bench.

The warrant, seen by CBC News, says it appears that Yang "is no longer a resident of Canada." He is facing nine charges laid by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) in November, including four counts of filing a false or deceptive tax return, three counts of tax evasion and two counts of fraud. Four of the charges allege he fudged his personal tax returns for 2015 and 2016 and failed to report commissions he earned on the business deals he teed up, while the rest of the charges relate to allegedly false tax returns he filed or assented to on behalf of a company called Kailas Energy Corp., where he worked as a director.

"The CRA alleges that Yang facilitated the acquisition of multiple Canadian oil and gas assets by investor groups in China. During the 2015 and 2016 taxation years, Yang failed to report consulting fees," read a CRA news release published Tuesday afternoon. "These transactions were done in such a way as to obscure the