By Canadian Press

Ex-lottery VP relates details of Day 1 briefing about money laundering in B.C.

Jan 26, 2021 | 3:06 PM

VANCOUVER — A former top executive at British Columbia’s lottery corporation says he received a high-level briefing about suspicious cash activities at provincial casinos with possible links to organized crime on his first day on the job.

Robert Kroeker testified at the public inquiry into money laundering that briefing in September 2015 involved the findings of a corporate security document.

The former RCMP officer was fired as vice-president of corporate compliance at the Crown corporation in 2019.

Kroeker says the document concluded lottery officials appeared unwilling to address police concerns about suspicious cash and its potential connections to organized crime over the potential fallout if the information became public.

The province appointed B.C. Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen in 2019 to lead the public inquiry into money laundering after three reports outlined how hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal cash affected the province’s real estate, luxury vehicles and gaming sectors.

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Kroeker, who also a lawyer and an early architect of B.C.’s civil forfeiture office, has been testifying at the inquiry for the past two days.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2021.

The Canadian Press