Report on money laundering in casinos expected to ‘shock’ British Columbians

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – He’s expecting us to be just as shocked as he was when he read it.

That’s what Attorney General David Eby is saying ahead of a long-awaited report on money laundering at BC casinos getting released.

“Many of NEWS 1130’s listeners will have been following this story, but there are lots of people who haven’t been. The report will summarize how we got to this point–what’s been happening in the casinos. The second part of the report, and it’s a critically important part, are the recommendations about how we fix it and move forward and they’ll get a picture of why it was so shocking that this went on for so long.”

Eby says several improvements have been made since he was first alerted–including a rule requiring all gamblers prove where their money’s coming from before they’re allowed to place a bet.

“Steps that we’ve taken already have reduced the suspicious cash transactions 100 times below the level of the peak in July of 2015. The range of suspicious cash transactions was between three and five million dollars per month and then, it dropped to $200,000 in a month.”

Even though he has the power to do it, the Attorney General says he has no desire to shut down casinos used by criminals to launder money.

Eby says that’s because operators across the province have complied with orders aimed at reducing suspicious cash transactions.

“Since becoming responsible for the file, for example, we changed the agreement between casinos and the province, so we can improve–essentially–discipline for service providers that fail to meet standards. Currently, under the existing agreement, we can do either nothing or pull the entire license.”

He admits plans to crack down on money laundering could be expensive because government revenues will likely suffer.

“That does have financial implications. We’ve budgeted $30 million of losses at the government level because we do expect it will have impacts on the high roller tables, as word gets out that BC is no longer an open door for this kind of activity.”

Eby says the 250-page report by former RCMP Deputy Commissioner Peter German contains 45 recommendations.

It will be released during a 9:30 a.m. news conference in Vancouver.

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