{"id":124576,"date":"2020-01-17T07:40:38","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T15:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=124576"},"modified":"2020-01-17T10:40:45","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T18:40:45","slug":"bc-casinos-no-longer-have-links-to-organized-crime-attorney-general-eby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bc-casinos-no-longer-have-links-to-organized-crime-attorney-general-eby\/","title":{"rendered":"BC Casinos No Longer Have Links to Organized Crime: Attorney General Eby"},"content":{"rendered":"

British Columbia\u2019s Attorney General David Eby has assured the public that there is \u201cno casino operator in our province that has organized crime involvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"David
AG David Eby said the document uncovered this week shows why he was so concerned by the previous government\u2019s failure to crack down on money laundering within the casino industry. (Image: Toronto Star)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His comments follow the discovery by Global News<\/em> of a suppressed 2009 report<\/a> which revealed that a BC regulatory investigator allowed a businessman with \u201cconnections to Asian organized crime\u201d to purchase a stake in a BC Lottery Corp casino, despite the official knowing about his associations.<\/p>\n

Both the businessman and official were unnamed in the report. The latter was identified as having retired from the BC government, but in 2009 was still \u201cinvolved in the legitimate gaming industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report also claimed that the interests of the province\u2019s legitimate casino industry became intertwined with its illegal underground casinos, and they shared the same criminal elements, including money laundering, loan sharking, corruption, violence, and human trafficking.<\/p>\n

Buried Evidence<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But rather than act on the report\u2019s recommendations, the province\u2019s Liberal government of the time disbanded the police unit that compiled it, the RCMP\u2019s Anti-Illegal Gaming Unit (AIGU).<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Eby praised Global News<\/em> for publishing details of the document, which were obtained after numerous freedom-of-information requests.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad the document is in the public domain now,\u201d Eby told KTW<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s a document that I was familiar with. Now that it\u2019s public, it helps the public understand why I was so concerned about the previous government\u2019s failures to crack down.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It wasn\u2019t until Eby\u2019s New Democratic Party came to power in 2017 that the full extent of money laundering at BC casinos was uncovered, along with other reports that had apparently been supressed. BC\u2019s money laundering problem — which had strong ties to the drugs cartels — quickly became a national scandal in Canada.<\/a><\/p>\n

Police Unit Shutdown \u2018Troubling\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Eby called the decision to shut AIGU down just three months after it presented its report \u201ctroubling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would think anyone that reads a report about kidnapping, extortion, organized crime involvement in casinos, their immediate instinct wouldn\u2019t be to disband the policing team. It would be, \u2018should we providing more resources? What\u2019s going wrong here? How do we fix this problem?’\u201d he told Global News.<\/em><\/p>\n

The fact that we know the money laundering continued in casinos in the Lower Mainland for another seven years after that report, until the new government was sworn in, is really inexcusable in my opinion,\u201d Eby added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson said this week he had requested all copies of documents that related to money laundering under the previous administration. He said they would be \u201creviewed\u201d before being turned over to an ongoing public inquiry.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have got to understand that this is over a 17-year period,\u201d he said. \u201cIt could be a whole room full of material some poor soul has to go through.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

British Columbia\u2019s Attorney General David Eby has assured the public that there is \u201cno casino operator in our province that has organized crime involvement.\u201d His comments follow the discovery by Global News of a suppressed 2009 report which revealed that a BC regulatory investigator allowed a businessman with \u201cconnections to Asian organized crime\u201d to purchase […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":124577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBC Casinos No Longer Have Links to Organized Crime: AG David Eby<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"BC Casinos have removed links to organized crime that were uncovered in a buried report from 2009, attorney general David Eby said this week.\" \/>\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=\"BC Casinos No Longer Have Links to Organized Crime: AG David Eby\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"BC Casinos have removed links to organized crime that were uncovered in a buried report from 2009, attorney general David Eby said this week.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bc-casinos-no-longer-have-links-to-organized-crime-attorney-general-eby\/\" \/>\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=\"2020-01-17T15:40:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-01-17T18:40:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/ebymain.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\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\/bc-casinos-no-longer-have-links-to-organized-crime-attorney-general-eby\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bc-casinos-no-longer-have-links-to-organized-crime-attorney-general-eby\/\",\"name\":\"BC Casinos No Longer Have Links to Organized Crime: AG David Eby\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bc-casinos-no-longer-have-links-to-organized-crime-attorney-general-eby\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bc-casinos-no-longer-have-links-to-organized-crime-attorney-general-eby\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/ebymain.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-01-17T15:40:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-01-17T18:40:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"BC Casinos have removed links to organized crime that were uncovered in a buried report from 2009, attorney general David Eby said this week.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bc-casinos-no-longer-have-links-to-organized-crime-attorney-general-eby\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bc-casinos-no-longer-have-links-to-organized-crime-attorney-general-eby\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bc-casinos-no-longer-have-links-to-organized-crime-attorney-general-eby\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/ebymain.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/ebymain.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":800,\"caption\":\"AG David Eby said the document uncovered this week shows why he was so concerned by the previous government\u2019s failure to crack down on money laundering within the casino industry. 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