B.C. Casinos Used to Launder Dirty Money, RCMP Suspects

The amount of money in suspicious payouts at B.C. casinos tripled over the past year.

A man who was either very lucky or very shady walked into a New Westminster casino last May carrying chips worth $1.2 million and immediately asked they be converted to cash. In another transaction, a man bought $460,000 worth of chips with $20 bills. The Starlight casino says there was nothing wrong with the transactions, but the RCMP suspects they were part of a scheme to launder the proceeds of organized crime. In all, two casinos paid out $8 million over 90 days in large cash transactions. The casinos say that they experienced an influx of tourists and businesspeople from Asia during that time.