Anonymous Tip Website For the BC War on Money Laundering
The Canadian province of British Columbia has been battling money laundering within their casinos for quite some time now. And it’s no small problem. The word on the street is that over 100 million dollars have been laundered through BC casinos within the last 10 years. A recent audit of River Rock Casino in BC revealed that the casino had accepted an estimated 13 million dollars in 20 dollar bills in 2015 alone. It is this revelation that led to an investigation into all BC Lottery casinos.
Where does this money come from and why was it allowed to pass through the casino without anyone batting an eyelid? These are the questions that the investigation has, so far, failed to definitively answer. Which is causing more than a little embarrassment for both law enforcement and the casino operators.
High Rollers Under Fire
Canadian law enforcement does have a very credible theory, however, which is that most of this ready cash has come directly from the hands of those involved in organised crime, drug traffickers in particular. The money is then passed to high rollers from China who effectively ‘clean’ the money by using it to place huge bets at the casino. Certain ‘bad apple’ employees of the casino are then, most likely, paid very well to turn a blind eye to the issue of where the money is coming from.
Strict policies have now been put in place to begin documenting the financial transactions between casinos and the high-roller players who spend more than 10,000 dollars in one day. Players now need to provide documentation regarding the source of the funds. Unfortunately, not all gambling establishments are upholding these policies and even BCLC (the British Columbia Lottery Corporation) haven’t strictly enforced them. In fact, some employees of casinos that are under investigation have actually been caught destroying evidence of the money trail.
Will the Anonymous Tip Website Help Win the War?
A new scheme has now been launched whereby anyone in the BC province can report any activity related to gambling that they deem to be suspicious to the authorities. This can be done via an anonymous tip website. Once the anonymous tip has been left on the site it will be investigated by officials. While this may seem like affirmative action, it has actually fallen flat on its face. One of the main concerns regarding the scheme is that the website will only be available for a period of two months, which many believe to be far too short to be truly effective. The general reaction to the scheme has been ‘luke-warm’ and this is mainly due to the fact that it is seen as nothing more than a poorly executed PR stunt to pacify the public outcry. And the fact that the website will only be available for 2 months only reinforces this belief.
Following an internal investigation by the BCLC, plans are now underway for an external audit of the casinos that have come under fire during this investigation. Those casinos that don’t strictly adhere to the anti-money laundering policies could be shut down indefinitely. However, this all smacks of being too little, too late.
