In recent years, headlines abounded about money laundering in British Columbia’s casinos. Now the spotlight has swung to gaming halls in Ontario, where suspicious transaction investigations have skyrocketed since 2017.
According to Global News, which investigated the matter under Freedom of Information laws, suspicious transaction reports in the province jumped from 945 in 2017 to 2,266 in 2018—a roughly 140 percent increase. In 2019, suspicious transactions numbered 1,327 in the first seven months of the year. All of it raises the question: are the higher numbers the result of greater diligence, or caused by more potentially illegal activities?
Now Ontario’s New Democrats are calling on Premier Doug Ford to take a stand on the issue. Taras Natyshak, NDP critic for ethics and accountability, called on the government “to shine a light” on what’s happening inside casinos and “take concrete steps to protect Ontario from being used by criminals as a laundromat for dirty money.”
“Something stinks, and it would be wrong for Doug Ford to look the other way when we saw what happened in B.C. before it got serious about cracking down on money laundering,” Natyshak said in a statement. “We don’t want criminals who faced a crackdown on money laundering in other provinces to see Ontario as a regulation-lite place where they can thrive.”
Global News asked for a comment from Ford, and was directed to the Ministry of Finance (MOF). “Ontario takes the integrity of gaming seriously, which is why we have strong anti-money-laundering and fraud protection processes in place,” said MOF spokesperson Scott Blodgett.
He also said Ontario’s anti-money-laundering regulations are among the toughest in the country, and added that the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. are “continually looking at Ontario’s regulatory framework and how it can be improved.” Blodgett said the government is working with federal and provincial law enforcement to “combat any suspicious activity taking place in our gaming sites.”
The rise in suspicious cash transactions in Ontario came shortly after B.C. cracked down on money laundering at its casinos. “We have reduced it by a factor of 100,” B.C. Attorney General David Eby said. “I believe that money has moved elsewhere.”
At the time, crime-buster Calvin Chrustie, a former senior officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, warned, “Dirty money will find the cracks and flow to more vulnerable systems in Canada.” Chief Superintendent Bill Price of the Ontario Provincial Police agreed that tougher rules in B.C. could have sent money launderers to Ontario casinos.
“Are we concerned about people from other jurisdictions coming here to infiltrate our casinos? Absolutely,” he said. “But we have a very good model in place to prevent that and disrupt that activity as much as possible.” Price said the spike in suspicious transaction investigations is also due, in part, to more gambling in the Greater Toronto Area and the OPP’s increased scrutiny of that gambling.
“If you turn a slot facility into a full-blown casino with table games, there’s larger transactions that automatically occur that should generate suspicious transaction reports,” Price said. “Woodbine (casino) itself went from a slot facility to a full-blown casino. That changes the dynamics.”
