Money-laundering report won’t play the blame game

At the peak of money laundering in B.C. casinos, an astonishing $20 million in suspected dirty loot sloshed through the casino cashier cages in a single month.

That was July 2015 — the worst month for “suspicious cash transactions” at B.C. casinos, according to Attorney General David Eby.

Since then, Eby said, the government has brought in stricter controls on large cash deposits by high-rolling gamblers.

Under the new rules, a deposit of $10,000 or more requires the customer to provide a “source of funds” declaration. After two transactions, cash can only be accepted if it’s proven the money is “not of a suspicious or illegal nature.”

The background checks — along with other beefed-up anti-crime measures at high-volume casinos like the River Rock in Richmond — resulted in a major decrease in suspected money laundering, Eby said.

“The most recent report I have is $200,000 in suspicious transactions in a month,” Eby told CKNW’s Jon McComb Monday. “So that’s a drop of 100 times from the peak.”

Despite improvements, Eby said there is more work to do to clean up money-laundering rackets in B.C.

On Wednesday, he will release a 250-page report containing 45 recommendations to crack down on money laundering.

Eby said the report will trace the timeline of casino money laundering in B.C. and name individuals and organizations affected at the time.

Despite the ugly history, Eby said no one has been fired from their jobs.

“It’s not a fault-finding report,” he said, though he also said people are welcome to take a close look at the timeline.

“People can draw their own conclusions from the chronology.”

That’s a pretty obvious shot at the previous Liberal government. In July 2015, Christy Clark was the premier and the Liberals were in power. That’s the same Liberal government that shut down the RCMP’s Integrated Illegal Gaming Enforcement Team in 2009.

Why did the Liberals shut the unit down? They said it was ineffective and redundant. And the team’s $1-million budget was relative peanuts anyway.

The Liberals will point to their move in 2016 to bring in a new illegal gambling police unit with an expanded budget of $4.6 million.

As the political finger-pointing goes on, no heads will roll. It appears no one will be held directly accountable for turning B.C. into a global gangster’s paradise.

But maybe a bigger issue than blame is how deep does the rot go?

Wednesday’s report, authored by former RCMP deputy commissioner Peter German, will flag possible money-laundering activity in the B.C. real-estate sector.

That will likely result in Eby ordering a second phase of investigations, this one into the housing market and other sectors infected by criminal money laundering in the province.

This is a beast with many tentacles, slithering into many different pockets of the economy. It’s been allowed to grow for years and slaying it for good will be difficult.