Testing the system

21.05.2008

The suggestion made by a police investigator earlier this week that Ontario land casinos may be used for money laundering purposes (see previous InfoPowa report) sparked an informal "sting" operation by CBC News teams at two casinos, illustrating that relatively large amounts of money can be deposited for laundering purposes....and that the official reporting system at casinos seems to be working.

Officials at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) confirmed that the transactions had been reported to the police by the casinos as required for amounts over $10 000.

This was confirmed by the police, but Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) officials were less cooperative, saying that the organisation cannot legally disclose whether OLG filed a report about the CBC experiment.

The CBC News teams fed $15 000 each into slot machines at the two casinos, making no effort to disguise their activities and in full view of casino staff, patrols and overhead surveillance cameras. They were not approached, and after loading up the slots with the money, the teams cashed out and took the machine stubs to the cashiers, requesting cheques for $4 951 and $9 502 (below the $10 000 threshold) and a single cheque for $14 640.

Cashier staff at both casinos demanded ID and then paid out by cheque as requested. The news firm then briefed the OLG and asked for comment. It was advised that the behaviour of the news teams had been noted and reported to the police, although the OLG chief executive officer was prevented by law from confirming that a report had been made to FINTRAC.

The OLG executive said casino staff are always on the lookout for suspicious activity.

"All of our people within all our facilities are trained in terms of looking for suspicious behaviour, whether that's the slot attendant on the floor, the cage and coin operator or … the surveillance that's in the sky in those facilities," the chief executive assured CBC.

Among the interesting statistics that the CBC report includes is the fact that Ontario casinos at one time filed hundreds of suspicious transaction reports per year, according to data from FINTRAC. In 2002-2003, Ontario casinos filed 330 such reports. That number dropped to 84 in 2007.