They Knew...

AllYourLaunderings
'RUsVille


I have to admit it.

I was disappointed by Sam Cooper's first Postmedia piece on all that suspicious cash that had washed up at the base of Bridgeport Station.

But, as for Mr. Cooper's latest, published late today/Monday?

Well that is something else entirely. Here is his lede:

In October 2015, former B.C. finance minister Mike de Jong wrote to the B.C. Lottery Corp. and warned that for B.C. casinos “large and suspicious transactions remain prevalent,” Postmedia has learned.

At that time, de Jong also directed BCLC board chair Bud Smith to “enhance customer due diligence to mitigate the risk of money laundering” in B.C. casinos, according to information cited in a May 2017 government letter to BCLC CEO Jim Lightbody.

The direction from de Jong in 2015 came after B.C. casino operators reported about $177 million in suspicious cash entering their casinos in 2014, government documents show.

“Despite the introduction and promotion of non-cash alternatives in gaming facilities through earlier phases of the anti-money laundering strategy; I am advised that large and suspicious cash transactions remain prevalent. This situation must be addressed,” de Jong’s October 1, 2015 letter to BCLC states.

The information — revealed in documents obtained by Postmedia after a freedom of information request — raises questions about why serious internal concerns about the laundering of proceeds of crime in B.C. casinos were only released last week by the B.C. government, and whether a dangerous problem was allowed to fester for too long...


And don't forget, it was the BC Liberal government and the then Minister responsible, Mr. Rich Coleman, that dismantled the integrated illegal gambling enforcement team that could have curtailed this way back in...

...2009.

Yes.

You read that right.

2009.


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It's important to remember that, despite what Postmedia would like you to think (based on editorialish-type insertions into their reporter's copy, that it was Bob Mackin that first broke this story. 
Also, I find it interesting that so few proMedia members are going back to 2009, a time when a whole lotta BCL crony-assisted Casino Industrial Complexification was getting set to go down under the cover of what would become a $500 million bit of magic carpet in the sky....Kind of reminscent of the fine Club members that refuse(d) to connect the dots on big money donations and downstream decisions favourable to said donors.


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