Richmond’s River Rock Casino has been, once again, linked to suspicious cash transfers and cases of money laundering, according to Canadian authorities. Last month, they arrested an alleged international money launderer while he was playing baccarat at the casino. Despite the recently introduced measures for countering financial crime, however, he had an inexplicably large sum in chips in him.
On Tuesday, the Immigration and Refugee Board in Vancouver ruled the man to be deported to Australia where he originally is from. The 55-year-old suspect, Dan Bai Shun Jin, entered Canada at the beginning of May, but according to authorities, he did not declare the charges filed against him in the United States. Since 2014, he has deposited around $1.4 million in fake cheques at Las Vegas casinos, investigators say, adding that there are ongoing investigations against him in the U.S and Australia. It turns out that the man was actually a part of a large-scale money laundering network which operates in casinos across the U.S., Australia, Macau and Singapore.
According to official court documents, Jin gambled approximately $850 million in a Melbourne casino from 2005 to 2013, by all standards that is a massive amount of money. Authorities say he laundered proceeds from illegal activity through the casino. Now, Canadian investigators believe he was involved in a similar scheme in Canada, too. He was noticed by the police after they stopped a woman at the Vancouver International Airport. She was carrying $20,000 to the suspect, so officers decided to find the man.
They arrested him in River Rock Casino, the largest casino resort in the Province of British Columbia. The man had $75,000 in chips and he could not provide their source – he said he brought in $6,000, which he managed to turn into $69,000 by winning at baccarat. This, according to authorities, sounded too unlikely and suspicious, especially considering the place he was arrested at, River Rock Casino.
Do the New Anti-Money Laundering Measures Work?
River Rock Casino is a large casino resort in Richmond, British Columbia, and it is operated by Great Canadian Gaming Corporation. Since last year, and even earlier, the property has been linked with multiple cases of “suspicious cash transactions”. According to a confidential report commissioned by the B.C. Lottery Corporation, in July 2015 the casino accepted $13.5 million in $20 bills. This was just one of the many cases indicating suspicious activity in the casino.
Earlier this year, the provincial government introduced strict measures for combating money laundering and other forms of financial crime. Casino patrons are now required to file a declaration for their source of funds if they play with cash or cash equivalents of $10,000 or more within 24 hours. In Jin’s case, however, the new requirements would not apply as the sum he deposited into the casino was less than $10,000.
The $6,000 he brought in at River Rock Casino was not going to trigger any suspicions in financial regulators and even in casino staff. As his lawyer pointed out, he was just a high-roller from Australia who was lucky playing baccarat. Court documents show, however, that Jin works as a marketer for a sports company in China and the huge sums he gambles with are not in accordance with his known legally obtained income.
