B.C.'s solicitor general has called an emergency meeting with the head of the B.C. Lottery Corp. after a CBC News investigation revealed suspected money laundering at the province's casinos is under-reported. "I am meeting with the board of directors of [the] B.C. Lottery Corporation immediately and will be seeking from them an explanation about how the reporting … has been conducted and the apparent discrepancy in the numbers," John van Dongen said. It is his responsibility to ensure B.C. casinos are operated with integrity, he said. In the legislature, the Opposition demanded answers to questions about the allegations of money laundering in B.C. casinos. "Their silence and their inaction has put the integrity of the entire system at risk," said NDP leader Carole James. "How is it the media knew more about the scandal than he [the Solicitor General] did? Or is this just another example of a coverup by the Liberal government?" Van Dongen said he will be looking for answers when he meets the directors of the B.C. Lottery Corp.
The documents from the provincial government's Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch obtained by the CBC outline thousands of incidents of suspicious activities and large cash transactions in casinos, including allegations of loan sharking, money laundering and fraud. The documents also show charges were laid in less than one per cent of the incidents. Lawyers for the CBC spent four years trying to obtain the documents through freedom of information requests, but two big casino companies and the provincial branch overseeing gaming tried to stop them from being handed over. CBC News recently obtained 3,000 pages outlining suspicious transaction reports, or STRs, and large cash transaction reports, or LCTRs, with some details blacked out. Van Dongen said he does not know why it took four years for his office to hand over the documents. The Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch is an arm of the solicitor general's office. "I can't comment on that … but certainly there is a law in place for access to information and my expectation from my ministry is that that law is followed," he said. Mary Carlson, the executive director of the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of B.C., said the delay was unusually long. "It's unfortunate that it took four years. It was a complex, elongated process with lots of procedural objections and at the end of the day, the commissioner is definitely not happy it took as long as it did because we, of all people, know that information delayed is information denied," Carlson said.
Don Quixote Note: My own experience with a FOI request with the same group of people and the City of Penticton which was started Jan 3, 2007 was finally completed Feb 29, 2008 and seems almost quick by comparison. Quixotic Quest Querying Government completed !
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