VANCOUVER — British Columbia s longest-serving gaming minister was asked Wednesday if he would have done things differently to stamp out money laundering at provincial casinos. Rich Coleman, who . . .
VANCOUVER British Columbia s longest-serving gaming minister was asked Wednesday if he would have done things differently to stamp out money laundering at provincial casinos. Rich Coleman, who first assumed responsibility for gaming in 2001 and held the job off and on until 2013, testified for more than four hours at the Cullen Commission public inquiry into money laundering. The former Liberal deputy premier rejected previous inquiry testimony by former top-ranking investigators who said Coleman was part of efforts to put gaming profits ahead of growing concerns about large amounts of suspicious cash at casinos with ties to organized crime. “As you look back, do you look back and say, Here s a problem that may have developed and I might have done things differently had I had different or better information at the time?” asked Brock Martland, a lawyer for the commission.
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The previous Liberal government was not wilfully blind to dirty money and has been the victim of an intentionally misleading narrative, former cabinet minister Mike de Jong insisted Friday at the inquiry into money laundering.
âThatâs just not true,â he emphasized.
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âI never saw, heard, and â Iâve been at this for a while, with some pretty good antennae â but I never saw or heard anything that would suggest people werenât interested in addressing this or were trying to turn a blind eye. I have had people on the phone in the last few years in tears because of the suggestion thatâs what happened or thatâs what they did.
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Reports of money laundering at British Columbia casinos had the attention of the government a decade ago, says the interim leader of the Liberal party who was then the minister in charge of gaming.
But Shirley Bond said Thursday civil forfeiture, gang violence and gambling addiction were also major concerns when the gaming file was part of her duties as the solicitor general and minister of public safety in 2011.
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