Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk received the ire of the province’s Premier Doug Ford, for the way she recently investigated casinos. Ford suggested that Lysyk should “stay in her lane.”
Lysyk suspected that some people were skirting the measures put in place to guard against money laundering at casinos. She hired undercover individuals to see if they could obtain casino checks from the casinos, a popular way criminals, including members of organized crime, launder cash from illicit dealings.
Security cameras apparently recorded her operatives successfully acquiring checks.
That mattered little to Ford and the Ontario Provincial Police, who said it was a waste of police resources.
Lysyk was unrepentant when asked if it was worth spending taxpayers’ money on such an operation.
“We have a job to do … so we do believe it was a worthwhile exercise,” she said. “As part of the audit, mystery shoppers tested how easy it was to launder money and they were able to obtain casino checks with large amounts of cash, without anyone confirming where the money came from.”
Lysyk pointed out in a written report that in two instances, undercover agents walked into two casinos and were able to leave with $4,900 and $10,600 in checks.
“The purpose of the mystery shopper assignment was to test whether the casinos verified the mystery shoppers’ play and casino wins before issuing cheques of $3,000 or more,” Lysyk wrote in her report.
Ford suggested that it was a waste of money.
“The auditor general has to stay in her lane and focus on where there’s waste of money,” he said during a news conference. “You can’t do a sting operation, you can’t all of a sudden deputize yourself and think you’re the secret service going around doing sting operations—that failed by the way and they were caught.”
Lysyk defended her actions.
“We do believe it was a worthwhile exercise to revisit the internal controls that are communicated to the casino operators, who are big casino operators in Ontario, of how to ensure that they restrict as much as they can money laundering from happening in the casinos in Ontario,” she said.
