Although an Asian loan shark was supposedly banned from all casinos run by the British Columbia Lottery Corp., the mobster continued to fund high rollers from China at the River Rock Casino in Richmond with the knowledge of the casino’s staff, according to a report by Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) obtained by Global News.
Although the alleged loan shark, Paul King Jin was banned, casino staff continued to take a total of $4 million from him and pass it through the system for three years, until 2015, the RCMP’s E-Pirate investigation shows.
Jin’s suspicious transactions were first noted in 2012 and six months later BCLC banned him from all of its casinos for five years for alleged loan sharking, said the FINTRAC report. It warned that Jin presented “an extreme risk to BCLC and its gaming service providers.” It added, “Most of the patrons that Jin has supplied cash for are known VIP players with extensive gaming histories and considerable wealth with mostly Asian-based businesses.”
Jin continued to show up on surveillance videos conducting business, according to BCLC Gaming Policy Enforcement Branch documents. He was in 2014 considered the #1 target by the investigators and from May to October of that year was noted being involved in 28 deliveries of cash or casino chips to gamblers, a total of close to $4 million. Eventually the Lottery Corp. tipped off the casino’s top managers.
BCLC Vice President Brad Desmarias met repeatedly with top executives of Great Canadian Gaming, which operates River Rock. Among those attending was Walter Soo, who ran River Rock’s high-limit VIP rooms, COO Terrance Doyle and the casino’s security and compliance officer, Robert Kroeker.
Records of the meetings noted that Paul Jin was frequently mentioned as well as the need to communicate to the Asian high rollers the dangers of using cash or obtaining chips from persons such as Jin. In spite of the warnings, Jin continued unabated until December 2015, most of the meetings in plain view of surveillance and with staff members “knowingly accepted cash that they acknowledged was obtained from questionable sources,” according to the report.
In all, the audit alleges that River Rock accepted $5.37 million in cash from various banned loan sharks in 2015, $4 million from Jin.
At this point, no charges have been filed against Jin.
The Global News asked BCLC to explain how Jin’s activities continued for so long. The government entity claims that from 2014 on it reported its concerns to the authorities, and especially the Gaming Policy Enforcement Branch.
Great Canadian issued a statement that it “operates in strict compliance with all laws and regulations,” and “our staff has no discretion with respect to compliance with these regulations.”
It also stated: “Great Canadian initially detected this suspicious activity at River Rock in 2012, and our comprehensive and ongoing monitoring and reporting to BCLC was, in fact, crucial to identifying these individuals to the authorities.”
Meanwhile, Casino.org reports that as much as $2 billion has been laundered at B.C. casinos, which is higher by several orders of magnitude from the estimate of $100 million that former RCMP investigator Peter German claimed in his report “Dirty Money” released last year.
Global News also reported that the money laundering included some Canadian banks, and that some VIP players even scammed the BC Lottery Corporation’s own “patron gaming fund.” The investigators now believe that as much as $1.7 billion in “suspected dirty money” went through government accounts between 2010-2018.
In a statement BCLC claims its funds were not compromised. “Only funds sourced to a recognized financial institution may be placed in a patron gaming fund (PGF) account at account opening. BCLC monitors play activity and PGF account activity and investigates unusual activity — including by requesting proof of source of wealth.”
Global News disputes that, however, claiming that its sources show that the accounts in question were financed through suspicious bank drafts. It notes that a substantial part of the $1.7 billion came from 10 Chinese VIPs with ties to the Chinese Triad organized crime syndicate.
The Global News claims that the new revelations put the entire investigation in debt, especially since recent revelations that a criminal case that was very publicly abandoned without an indictment after the prosecution mistakenly leaked information on a key witness to the defense.
This prompted BC Attorney General David Eby to admit that something “obviously went terribly wrong.”
