Criminals love casinos. They're great places for loan sharking and passing counterfeit money.
And even more important for the serious crooks, casinos are the easiest place to launder money.
The CBC used freedom of information requests to learn that millions of dollars in suspicious transactions flowed through two B.C. casinos in three months last year. The casino companies told B.C. Lotteries, but no one passed the information on to police immediately.
These aren't slightly suspicious transactions. In one case, a man entered a New Westminster casino with $1.2 million worth of chips. He didn't place a bet. He just turned them in and took the money in cash.
He told staff he was boarding a flight and was concerned the money might look suspicious. So the casino gave him a letter confirming the money was a casino payout.
It's a classic money-laundering scenario. Crime - drug dealing, robbery, whatever - can produce lots of cash. Banks have to report deposits of more than $10,000 to FINTRAC, a federal agency that fights money laundering and organized crime. Even if money is broken into smaller deposits to come under the limit, a criminal might end up having to explain where all the money came from.
Instead, criminals can buy chips in casinos, cash them in and get a cheque or, in this case, cash with a letter suggesting they were winnings. The money is clean.
In another case uncovered by the CBC, a man entered a Richmond casino with a bag stuffed with $460,000 in $20 bills and bought chips. The casino reported that there was nothing suspicious in the transaction.
All told, there were 90 large transactions worth $8 million in three months.
The RCMP only learned about this after the fact. Insp. Barry Baxter, with the unit that tracks the proceeds of crime, said the police suspect money laundering. "The common person would say this stinks," he said.
Casinos also have to report large transactions to FINTRAC, the federal Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre, and also report to police and the province's Gaming Policy Enforcement Branch. But the reports aren't required for 30 days; a quick first step would be to require immediate reporting to police.
Rich Coleman, the minister responsible for gambling, initially downplayed the reports. He later promised an investigation.
But none of this is surprising.
The government's Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch 2006 annual report, for example, warned of a crime explosion at casinos, with investigations into offences like loan sharking and money laundering more than doubling in a year.
Last year, it was revealed B.C. Lotteries had been fined $670,000 under federal laws aimed at combating money laundering and terrorism financing. There were more than 1,000 infractions; in eight cases, the most basic information wasn't collected when people walked out of casinos with more than $10,000.
FINTRAC said fines are only imposed for a "persistent, chronic failure to comply with the law."
Despite the warnings, enforcement has been minimal. In 2009, the government shut down the five-year-old specialized police unit created to target gambling-related crime.
And the enforcement branch's just-released annual report for the 2009-10 fiscal year reveals that it opened 635 investigations into money laundering, loan sharking and counterfeit offences in casinos, without laying a single charge.
Again, none of this is surprising. Casinos want to make money. Coleman and B.C. Lotteries are responsible for increasing the number of gamblers in the province, the average amount each one loses and the province's take.
Cracking down on transactions that could be linked to money laundering is a threat to those goals. Casinos fear that asking for information from big gamblers could drive away some of their best customers.
The obvious, and long overdue, first step is end the inherent conflict in having one minister responsible both for promoting gambling losses and fighting crime in casinos.
Footnote: The CBC reported that reports to FINTRAC showed that while the dollar value of suspicious transactions at casinos in other provinces stayed the same or went down in the past year, they tripled in B.C.
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7 comments:
Paul, your lede should have been:
"Politicians love casinos." or "Governments love casinos."
The government is raking in a tidy sum on every dollar that ...ahem, changes hands in BC's casinos.
Politicians become as addicted to gambling profits as crack addicts are to cocaine. It generates the money to cover all manner of sins.
Is anyone surprised that the Liberals downplayed the report, or that they disbanded the special investigative team? Not me.
Loan sharks? Petty thieves? You're missing the real culprit, the biggest, and most powerful organized criminal outfit in BC –– the government and its (hand-maiden) authorities.
Paul, can you say "Something is rotten in the State of Denmark"?
Raymond Graham
Coleman is going to straighten things out, or so he claims. Sort of like how he sorted out all that land over by Jordon River where the lumber company got to sell the land and the province never got a cent. Ida helped by dragging her feet on a CRD bylaw. Letting those sort of folks loose near money means we get the short end of the stick
"The obvious, and long overdue, first step is end the inherent conflict in having one minister responsible both for promoting gambling losses and fighting crime in casinos."
Splitting between ministries might improve the optics but one Cabinet colleague is not likely to challenge another. After all, they pledge solidarity. One Cabinet can not enable opposing policies so law enforcement elements of gambling should be moved out of government,since that is the big financial winner from gaming.
Paul,
Good work ... thanks.
What has always bothered me, since RCMP Staff Sgt. John Ward mentioned it at that Press Conference on Dec. 29, 2003, is where does the $6 or $7billion in cash end up, that's floating hand-to-hand around BC each year ?
In particular, it isn't remotely logical to assume that it doesn't get used for electoral purposes. And, given that fact, it's impossible not to realize that Organized Crime is moving comfortably around the corridors of the BC Legislature.
The key to exposing the corruption is in the BC Rail deal. Once a Public Inquiry unlocks those doors, we'll be wiser citizens. We'll know how corruption begins, how to lay charges, and how to start the clean-up. I say we can't afford not to have a Public Inquiry and that the next BC premier is the person who guarantees that we will have it.
.
When Coleman raised the weekly amounts to just under $10K he, in my opinion, signalled to crime, "we are open for business".
The lottery corporation is there to ensure more money comes into the hands of the politicians and that is what is happening.
There isn't another place in the country where you can walk in with such large amounts of money and not be questioned.
If the government was truly concerned they would have mechanisms in place to deal with such large transactions, i.e. identification--which could be verified, R.C.M.P. nearby to interview persons with such large amounts of cash....
Nothing like this has been done and I'm not holding my breathe that anything will be done.
If you have the money you can buy it............
and they say Quebec is the most corrupt place in Canada. Not in my opinion.
Unfavourably comparing corrupt British Columbia with corrupt Quebec! Love it. Increasing corruption of governments and their employees is all part of the anti-social fun generated by Prohibition.
I have never seen any dubious transactions take place at a gambling facility in B.C. but I have, upon entering a casino, intuitively grasped just where a lot, if not most, of the money in people's stakes came from. How could it be otherwise in a province who's most powerful economic engine is dope?
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