Laundering while playing
The Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) issued a report that focuses on the vulnerabilities of the gambling and gaming sector. Although the report does not bring new insights to the problem it is a solid description of the money laundering risk of the industry and the current state of anti money laundering efforts. You can find some more entries on gambling and laundering in this weblog (hit ‘gambling’ in the tag cloud in the left sidebar).
Included are some short real life examples of how criminals applied the techniques described in the report, such as this one:
A cargo consignment addressed to a person contained approximately 3.4 kilograms of black opium resin, concealed within the contents. The person was arrested when attempting to collect the consignment. Further investigation revealed the person to be a regular customer of a casino, having conducted approximately 50 betting transactions, predominantly chip cash outs totalling AUD 890 000. Very little casino gaming play was recorded for the person and it was assumed that he used the proceeds from previous importations to purchase chips and claim the funds as winnings.
The report has an off topic description on how to accumulate vast amounts of points on your credit card award program (don’t try this: APG classifies it as a scam and you probably will not make friends doing it):
A jurisdiction reported a credit card point scam where casino chips are purchased using credit cards. The chips are then cashed out and instead of crediting the credit card, casinos usually issue cash or a casino cheque. The balance on the credit card is eligible for consumer points. The balance on the credit card is paid back using the cash or cheque received from the casino. This method enabled large amounts of credit card points to be accumulated in a short period of time and can be used for merchandise purchases.
All in all a solid update on the relation gambling/money laundering but no shocking new insights. The oldest tricks still work….
http://www.apgml.org/documents/docs/6/Casinos%20Typologies%20Report%20Web%20March%202009.pdf
