JonWoodwardNew investigation from me!
Would you take this cash? Many Ontario casinos did -- with one man ending up responsible for upwards of $4 million in suspicious transactions, documents obtained by @ctvtoronto say.
That man was Branavan Kanapathipillai -- seen here at a Niagara Falls cashier who flagged a $100,000 deposit to authorities, who seized it and are applying in a civil court to keep it as possible proceeds of crime.
One financial crime expert says cash controls are lax enough at Ontario casinos that it's "open season" for people trying to take advantage of them to launder money:
But it could be the tip of the iceberg: figures obtained by CTV News show that after pandemic lows at $116 million, suspicious transactions have roared back to $372 million in 2022.
Ontario casinos recorded $372M in suspicious transactions last year. Some critics call for urgent action
More than $350 million in suspicious transactions were recorded in Ontario casinos last year – a trend that requires urgent attention if the province intends to keep dirty money out of its gambling facilities, some critics say.
Other experts say Ontario needs to learn the lessons from B.C., which had a money laundering problem so bad they called it "The Vancouver Model".
So much money was sloshing around it infected the housing market -- as well as the government.
'Stop taking the money,' senior gambling investigator warned before he was fired: Cullen Commission testimony
A flood of $20 bills into provincially regulated casinos convinced a senior investigator at B.C.’s gambling regulator that dirty money was washing through the system as early as 2009, a point of view he pushed until he was fired five years later, the investigator told B.C.’s Cullen Commission.
And after our stories — Ontario's AGCO says it's going to look into whether the casinos lived up to their standards in this case:
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/watchdog-to-review-how-ontario-casinos-accepted-suspicious-cash-1.6379005
Watchdog to review how Ontario casinos accepted suspicious cash
A provincial government watchdog will review the actions of Ontario casinos that accepted cash from a man who went to several locations, where documents say he singlehandedly deposited and withdrew more than $4 million in suspicious transactions.