Chinese developer took $2.68-million cash loan in Richmond coffee shop, legal filings show
Paul King Jin, the B.C. Lottery Corp.-banned lender at the centre of an investigation into alleged transnational money laundering in B.C. casinos, claims that he delivered a $2.68-million cash loan to a Chinese real estate developer in a Richmond coffee shop.
In B.C. Supreme Court filings, Jin says that on Dec. 24, 2015, he met a man named Xiao Bing Liu at a coffee shop on Richmond’s No. 3 Road to deliver “a significant amount of money.”
Liu, however, claims that he only signed a document in exchange for gambling chips at an illegal casino in Richmond, and that he does not owe Jin any money.
The case appears to shed light on elements of the RCMP’s E-Pirate investigation. In 2015, the RCMP targeted an alleged organized-crime network accused of delivering cash loans sourced from drug traffickers to VIP gamblers at Richmond’s River Rock Casino, and also running illegal casinos in Richmond attended by so-called “whale” gamblers from China.
In late August, at a Vancouver conference attended by law enforcement officials, RCMP Insp. Bruce Ward outlined the details of E-Pirate.
Without naming the suspect he was talking about, Ward said that in late 2015 E-Pirate targeted a number of residences and several illegal casinos in Richmond.
“These are some of the illegal casinos he was setting up. He thought he could double-end it,” Ward said. “Not only loan the money, but then run the casino and take the profits.”
Ward explained the complex methods by which organized criminals run illegal casinos without having any cash on premises.
“The way our laws are written, now when they build the illegal casinos, there is no cash,” Ward said. “You go to another place of business and you sign a loan. You (gamble in the illegal casino, and) record what you lose, or what you win. Then you go back to the place of business and pay off your debt, from the loan you took out.”
Jin’s claim that Liu has not repaid a $2.68-million loan is supported by an affidavit from “housewife” Jian Qiu Rong. Rong’s statement says that both she and Liu are from Shenyang, and she had heard of him “through my circle of friends in China.”
Rong says she met Liu socially in Richmond, and she learned that he was looking for a loan of up to $3 million, for an unknown purpose.
“When we first met, Xiao Bing Liu introduced himself to me as someone who started out doing real estate development in China,” Rong’s statement says. Rong says that she knew Jin “was in the business of lending money, (so) I introduced Paul King Jin to Xiao Bing Liu.”
Rong says that she was asked to attend a meeting between Jin and Liu and to act as a witness. The meeting took place at an unidentified coffee shop on No. 3 Road, near Liu’s 6300-block Buswell Street residence.
According to Rong’s affidavit, on Dec. 24, 2015, “At the meeting, Paul King Jin provided a bag containing cash to Xiao Bing Liu — I was able to see the content of the bag through its opening.”
Rong’s affidavit includes a translated Chinese language promissory note which says: “Today, I borrowed CAD $2.68 million from Mr. Paul King Jin for a term of one month.”
Rong claims that Liu signed the promissory note, and she signed as well.
Law enforcement and Richmond casino insiders have informed Postmedia that some businesses in the several city blocks near No. 3 Road and Westminster Highway are believed to be the centre of underground banking linkages between China and B.C.
This is the location of Silver International Investment, an alleged illegal money services business targeted in an October 2015 E-Pirate raid. The RCMP raid captured piles of alleged drug cash, according to Insp. Bruce Ward’s presentation, and a massive cache of evidence linking Silver to over 600 bank accounts in China.
Lenders operating in or around River Rock Casino were using Silver as a “cash house” to deliver bags stuffed with $20 bills to VIP gamblers recruited from Macau, according to E-Pirate allegations. B.C. Lottery Corp. documents obtained by Postmedia suggest the so-called ‘whale’ gamblers could pay back these loans in China with “little or no interest.”
“So far, BCLC has been able to determine that for a number of players they readily admit to not knowing the source of their cash, and that they pay back in suspicious circumstances using suspicious methods with little or no interest,” a September 2015 BCLC document regarding the ‘Jin investigation’ states. “This would indicate transnational money laundering rather than loan sharking.”
The ‘Jin investigation’ document also makes the troubling claim, that “there are likely people involved in the regulated B.C. gaming industry that are involved in facilitating proceeds of crime for players. Although cash is still the main instrument of choice for … ‘whales’ it will not be acceptable in the public eye if more player due diligence is not taken around receiving cash.”
Criminal money laundering charges have since been laid against Silver.
In the case allegedly involving an illegal casino and a $2.68 million cash loan, Rong’s affidavit states “I was advised by Paul King Jin that Xiao Bing Liu had defaulted on repaying the loan to him, and that he could not locate Xiao Bing Liu.”
Liu denies Jin’s version of events.
Liu’s response says that in December 2015, he “attended at an unlicensed and illegal common gaming house or casino in Richmond and was provided by the illegal casino with a quantity of its own gambling chips to be used in the illegal casino.”
Liu says that he “was asked by a female employee of the illegal casino to sign a document, which was written in the English language, which the defendant cannot read or understand, and which she described to him orally in the Chinese language as a receipt for the gambling chips.”
Liu says that he received gambling chips and later returned them to the illegal casino. Liu claims he never received money or a loan from Jin, and he did not intend to enter into a loan agreement.
“The original of the receipt document was kept by the illegal casino and the defendant was not given a copy,” Liu’s response says. Liu’s B.C. lawyer did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
According to a legal letter sent to Postmedia by Great Canadian, the operator of River Rock Casino, Paul Jin conducted 50 large cash transactions from May 2012 to September 2012 at the casino, and Great Canadian filed reports on these transactions.
After that, BCLC made the decision to bar Jin from B.C. casinos, according to Great Canadian’s legal letter.
“After Jin was barred, River Rock staff were the first to uncover the lending activities of Jin and his group near River Rock,” the legal letter from Great Canadian says. “In Jin’s case, after numerous reports filed by Great Canadian with both BCLC and (B.C.’s gaming enforcement branch) between 2012 and 2014, the RCMP eventually agreed to investigate Jin in 2014.”
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