Experts recently warned that Quebec casinos are susceptible to being exploited by organized crime syndicates, who can funnel money through the facilities.
CBC Radio-Canada obtained data from Loto-Quebec that showed $420 million in large cash transactions to Canada’s anti-money laundering watchdog over the past six years.
Casinos are usually easy places for criminals to “launder their money,” said Matt McGuire, an internationally recognized money-laundering expert.
Proving that, however, can often be difficult. McGuire did say that it’s a “virtual certainty” a portion of the cash used in casinos is linked to organized crime networks, which profit from illegal activities such as drug and human trafficking.
“The average person carries very little cash, so you know, an excess of cash is a warning sign,” said McGuire.
There is a law in Canada that casinos must report both suspicious cash transactions and large cash transactions totaling $10,000 or more to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (FINTRAC). FINTRAC’s mandate is to identify money-laundering threats and pass on the information to law enforcement.
Failing to do so can result in large fines to the casinos.
Since October 2017, reports from Loto-Quebec showed numerous
suspicious and large cash transactions it submitted to FINTRAC each quarter, between January 2015 and March 2021. The monetary value of the suspicious transactions and other details were not available.
But Loto-Quebec did report that an average of $77 million a year in large cash transactions were reported between the 2015-2016 and the 2019-2020 fiscal years. The number of suspicious transactions, however, grew from 254 in 2015-2016 to 395 in 2019-2020.
McGuire said he isn’t surprised Loto-Québec is reporting more suspicious transactions now, as it is likely being more careful following an administrative penalty it received for failures in compliance a few years ago.
Recommendations on trying to keep organized crime out of casinos included giving Loto-Québec additional powers to ban criminals, conducting stricter checks on the identity of players and their source of funds and improving information-sharing between police and Loto-Québec.
McGuire also said the single-card initiative would make it easier for the corporation to detect suspicious transactions.
“It makes every single one of their transactions trackable and traceable,” said McGuire. “It’s a forensic accountant’s dream.”
