British Columbia Casinos Violate Money Laundering Laws
In Canada, a handful of British Columbia land casinos have been found to be in violation of rules and procedures aimed at vetting players who bring large amounts of cash to gamble, with the aim of preventing money laundering.
The violations are of the laws aimed at detecting money laundering, particularly money that could potentially be used to fund terrorist operations. The specific allegations are that the BC land casinos - which are operated by the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) - failed to collect and record the information on the backgrounds of such patrons.
These violations were exposed by CBC News, which claims to have obtained uncensored and until now unseen documents from 2009 and 2010, after a year-long investigation. These were procured by CBC News through a Freedom of Information request and pertain to audits performed on three named casinos. One of the casinos is Grand Villa Casino in Burnaby.
An audit carried out by the British Columbia Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch recorded that nine large cash transactions in a single month did not mention sufficient details of the patrons as required under the federal Proceeds of Crime Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Act.
The backgrounds of the patrons were simply entered as "self-employed" or "business owner". The audit points out that under the Act, land casinos in British Columbia have to obtain complete details of the patron's principle business or occupation.
CBC News also reported that BCLC has been fined $700,000 by the Financial Transactions Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, for non-compliance of anti-money laundering measures. However, BCLC has appealed against the fine.
British Columbia Land Casinos Respond to Allegations
Bryon Hodgkin, the director of operation compliance at BCLC, has responded to the allegations. He claims that the casinos are required only to collect the information and file a report if they observe that the player is behaving in a suspicious manner.
Hodgkin said that the information recording process has been tightened to take care of the audit remarks. Specific examples given by him included training of over 5,200 personnel and appointing investigators to check on the records kept. Recording the occupation of players has been made a mandatory field and will be flagged if a generic entry is made.
However, the BCLC response has not satisfied former Crown prosecutor and now gambling critic, Sandy Garossino.
She says that it is a case of putting revenue ahead of national safety without understanding the serious implications of the laxness. Garossino claims that casinos in Las Vegas do not function in this irresponsible manner. "Let's get an audit of B.C. Lottery Corporation and the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch because this is just not good enough," she demanded.
