GET TOUGH ON CASINOS
We would like to think casinos simply provide entertainment as portrayed in the ads showing people dancing, dining, going to shows and playing roulette, offering a great night out.
But, as Postmedia reporter Sam Cooper has revealed in his investigative series over the past week, there is a dark side to the fun and games.
Through freedom of information requests, document searches and interviews with dozens of people following a trail of money around the globe, Cooper has shown how the proceeds of crime, amounting to millions of dollars — at least $220 million in a single year — are laundered through local casinos to be reinvested in drug trafficking, terrorism and B.C. real estate.
It is difficult to understand how an individuals at the centre of an RCMP probe into money laundering and underground banking could have operated for so long, even though their activities were known to authorities since 2012. It is alleged these individuals used an illegal money-transfer business in Richmond to lend suspected drug-dealer cash to high-roller gamblers recruited from Macau, who used large numbers of small bills to buy chips at River Rock Casino.
RCMP and police in China allege the money-transfer business was the linchpin in an underground banking network that involved a known 600 bank accounts in mainland China, and accounts in Mexico and Peru, used by drug dealers to buy cocaine. Cooper found that international wire transfers connected to drug dealing were covered up with fake trade invoices from Chinese companies, and showed connections to companies in Iran investigators believe are involved in terrorist financing.
Given the severity of these allegations, why was the Federal Serious and Organized Crime section the only agency initially to look into the matter? Could it be the provincial government and the B.C. Lottery Corp. were so addicted to revenue generated by illegal cash transactions that they looked the other way?
A report by auditor MNP LLP, obtained through a freedom of information request, recommended casinos refuse unsourced cash deposits exceeding a certain dollar threshold until the source can be determined and validated. Documents show the idea of barring big cash transactions until the funds are fully verified was suggested to BCLC in July 2016, but BCLC has not yet followed up on this recommendation.
Law enforcement agencies and regulators have more than enough evidence to act on this illegal activity that has caused incalculable damage to our society. They must stop the flow of unsourced cash and bring criminals to justice.