BC Lottery Corporation (BCLC) has hired a third-party auditor to monitor British Columbia’s three busiest casinos to “support their compliance with BCLC’s Source of Funds declaration requirements.” Those casinos are River Rock Casino Resort, the Grand Villa Casino and Parq Vancouver.
This action comes in the wake of a series of revelations that BC casinos over several years largely disregarded rules for tracking large scale cash transactions, which allegedly led to hundreds of millions of dollars being laundered, to the benefit of Chinese visitors and mob figures. This activity may have led to outrageously high real estate values in Vancouver and sparked an opioid epidemic in the province.
In a statement to the press, BCLC declared, “BCLC is taking action to ensure that its Casino Service Providers are completely and accurately recording information regarding the source of players’ funds as part of its commitment to the prevention of money-laundering activities in B.C. casinos.”
The auditor will ensure that casino workers collect detailed information on the source of funds of transactions exceeding $10,000, including financial institution, branch number, account number, and customer signature.
BC Attorney General David Eby, who commissioned the scathing German report on money laundering at BC casinos, has determined to “get dirty money out of B.C. casinos.”
