Soon, reports of gamblers getting robbed or kidnapped near the glitzy new casino also began trickling in to the local police. Wealthy tourists from China came in droves, some converting the same bricks of cash packaged the same way.
Thousands began streaming in at all hours when British Columbia got its first taste of Vegas-style gambling in June, 2004, in the opening days of the River Rock Casino Resort, located on the industrial outskirts of the Vancouver suburb of Richmond.Īmong the crowds, organized criminals were exchanging elastic-wrapped bricks of $20 bills – the lingua franca of the province’s sizable drug trade – for chips and then cashing out for bigger bills that were much easier to spend on legal goods and services.
