A third senior B.C. Lottery Corp. executive has poured scorn on consultant Peter German’s Dirty Money report at the Inquiry into Money Laundering.
Brad Desmarais, BCLC’s chief operating officer and a vice-president, said he was “shocked” and considered the report on massive amounts of cash being cleaned in B.C. casinos incredibly unfair and erroneous, partly because the incidence of suspicious cash transactions had “fallen off a cliff” between 2015 and 2017.
“There were a lot of challenges that arose out of that piece of work, and government’s blind acceptance of the recommendations was also a blow, ” Desmarais told the one-man commission triggered by German’s findings.
The 33-year-veteran of major crime investigations, many international, Desmarais said he believed there was a difference between money-laundering and proceeds of crime being spent by unwitting gamblers.
“We were constrained in responding to the criticisms of Dr. German’s report as well as some of the erroneous media stories that began to circulate about that time that caused morale to plummet in the organization and quite frankly our — I think with (Jim) Lightbody, myself and (Rob) Kroeker — our standing with the employees, because they would see these obviously false news reports and occasionally erroneous reports or comments from various members of government. They were looking to us to make it right. And we felt we couldn’t.”
