{"id":102649,"date":"2019-04-11T14:54:58","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T21:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=102649"},"modified":"2019-04-11T15:07:04","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T22:07:04","slug":"bclc-reports-exonerates-river-rock-casino-on-money-laundering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bclc-reports-exonerates-river-rock-casino-on-money-laundering\/","title":{"rendered":"BC Regulator Report Exonerates River Rock Casino From Money Laundering But Journalist Says It\u2019s Flawed"},"content":{"rendered":"

A British Columbia Lottery Corporation report has apparently cleared the River Rock Casino in Richmond of wide-scale money laundering, Global News<\/em> reports, despite the dirty-cash scandal that has engulfed the Canadian province\u2019s casino sector over the past few years.<\/p>\n

\"Money
The River Rock Casino is said to have been at the epicenter of British Columbia\u2019s money-laundering scandal but a BCLC report finds no evidence, although it appears to be barking up the wrong tree (Image: River Rock Casino)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A separate report commissioned by BC attorney general David Eby and published last year concluded the province\u2019s casinos had become a \u201claundromat for the proceeds of crime,\u201d with possibly billions of dollars<\/a> passing through a broken casino system, while management — and the government — turned a blind eye.<\/p>\n

But the BCLC report, conducted by Ernst & Young, found there had been \u201cno systemic pattern of money-laundering activity\u201d \u2013 at least with regards to cheques coming out of the River Rock.<\/p>\n

This, despite the Royal Canadian Mounted Police identifying the casino as being at the epicenter of the problem \u2013 having \u201cfostered a culture of accepting large bulk cash transactions,\u201d without inquiring about the source or filing reports to financial investigators.<\/p>\n

Nocturnal Drop Offs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In July 2015 alone, the casino was found to have accepted $13.5 million in cash. On one occasion, it accepted nearly half a million dollars in a single transaction, mostly it in $20 bills.<\/p>\n

\n

Meanwhile, police have said nocturnal drop offs of large amounts of cash in the casino\u2019s parking lot pointed to an illegal underground banking network with links to the drug trade and even terrorist financing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The BCLC said this week it commissioned its report due to allegations that customers at the River Rock were exchanging dirty cash for casino chips and then cashing them for checks. But Ernst & Young found that, of over 2,000 checks issued by the casino during the time period, only 49 raised red flags but these were all the result of innocent errors by staff.<\/p>\n

Straw Man Fallacy<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But speaking on local news radio, Global News<\/em> investigative journalist Sam Cooper said the BCLC was barking up the wrong tree and that swapping checks for cash was only a small part of the problem.<\/p>\n

A far more prevalent scheme involved criminals depositing piles of dirty cash \u2013 often drug money \u2013 with underground banking networks and receiving equivalent payments into Chinese bank accounts in return. The cash could then be loaned to Asian high-rollers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you read the [attorney general\u2019s] report, it says that [money laundering via casino checks] didn\u2019t happen a lot. That certainly did happen — some people laundered money that way, quite a lot of money in cheques — but it wasn\u2019t a systemic or wide pattern. So they\u2019ve, from my view, erected a bit of a straw-man and said this type of money laundering isn\u2019t occurring systematically.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On Monday, Eby said he was shocked to learn that, despite the negative headlines, the RCMP was doing \u201cnothing\u201d to investigate continued money laundering in the province.<\/p>\n

According to Global News<\/em>, due to weak laws and poor police leadership, there is little capacity to prosecute<\/a> international money launderers in Canadian courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A British Columbia Lottery Corporation report has apparently cleared the River Rock Casino in Richmond of wide-scale money laundering, Global News reports, despite the dirty-cash scandal that has engulfed the Canadian province\u2019s casino sector over the past few years. A separate report commissioned by BC attorney general David Eby and published last year concluded the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":102650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,18,18943],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBCLC Reports Exonerates River Rock Casino on Money Laundering<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"British Columbia Lottery Corporation report compiled by Ernst & Young finds no evidence of money laundering at the province\u2019s River Rock Casino in Richmond.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BCLC Reports Exonerates River Rock Casino on Money Laundering\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"British Columbia Lottery Corporation report compiled by Ernst & Young finds no evidence of money laundering at the province\u2019s River Rock Casino in Richmond.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bclc-reports-exonerates-river-rock-casino-on-money-laundering\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-04-11T21:54:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-04-11T22:07:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/river.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bclc-reports-exonerates-river-rock-casino-on-money-laundering\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bclc-reports-exonerates-river-rock-casino-on-money-laundering\/\",\"name\":\"BCLC Reports Exonerates River Rock Casino on Money Laundering\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bclc-reports-exonerates-river-rock-casino-on-money-laundering\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bclc-reports-exonerates-river-rock-casino-on-money-laundering\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/river.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-11T21:54:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-04-11T22:07:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"British Columbia Lottery Corporation report compiled by Ernst & Young finds no evidence of money laundering at the province\u2019s River Rock Casino in Richmond.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bclc-reports-exonerates-river-rock-casino-on-money-laundering\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bclc-reports-exonerates-river-rock-casino-on-money-laundering\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bclc-reports-exonerates-river-rock-casino-on-money-laundering\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/river.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/river.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":675,\"caption\":\"The River Rock Casino is said to have been at the epicenter of British Columbia\u2019s money-laundering scandal but a BCLC report that finds little evidence, although it appears that it focused on the wrong thing. 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