Explosive report shows BC Liberals received detailed warnings about criminal activity in casinos
Victoria: An explosive Global News investigative report today says that the RCMP warned the former BC Liberal government about serious criminal activity infecting the province’s gaming sector.
Former Crown prosecutor Sandy Garossino said the RCMP report “shreds the credibility” of former Solicitor General Rich Coleman’s explanation for disbanding IIGET – the RCMP unit tasked with rooting out organized crime tied to gaming.
“It is stunning to me that any government official would be provided that information, and the Solicitor General’s response was, rather than to grant police the resources they were seeking, to do the reverse, and disband the unit,” she told Global. “Children were kidnapped and murders took place in the pursuit of money and the provincial government knew it,” said Garossino. “It’s not just that they did nothing, but they actively disbanded this unit. So it is as if that is an intervention in making the police stop, from looking at the corruption they wanted to probe.”
British Columbians deserve to know why Coleman and his cabinet colleagues allowed the partial sale of a BC casino to an individual connected to organized crime after learning this information. To date, they have refused to release confidential cabinet documents associated with decisions like these. Surrey-guildford MLA Garry Begg said: “As a former RCMP officer, I find this report extremely disturbing. The warnings from law enforcement to the BC Liberals were even clearer and more frequent than we thought. If Andrew Wilkinson was serious about addressing this, he would have released the cabinet documents two years ago. Instead, he’s decided to protect himself and BC Liberal donors and make people pay the price.”