Richmond lawyer claims over $7.5M in trust money was stolen and laundered through a casino

A Richmond real estate lawyer is alleging that two former employees stripped a trust account of almost $8 million and that the money was laundered through a Lower Mainland casino.

Hong Guo of the Guo Law Corporation issued a news release Monday claiming that the ex-employees used forged cheques to take $7,665,000 out of a trust fund before it was laundered and then landed in China.

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Guo said she called the RCMP about the pair in April of last year, but said the police “did not pass any information to me, they did not help me at all.”

She alleged that one of the employees sent the funds to a bank account, and that they were later transferred to a BC Lottery Corporation account at the casino in question.

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Guo said she found evidence that the employee then “transferred the money in the form of casino chips” to China, where they were “turned into cash.”

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The B.C. Lottery Corporation (BCLC) confirmed to Global News that Guo and her law firm began an action against “several defendants regarding the alleged misappropriation of funds” in July 2016.

Counsel for the plaintiffs subsequently sought the disclosure of records relating to an ex-employee, according to the BCLC, and the lottery corporation complied with a court order to provide them, said a spokeswoman.

“As the allegations against the defendants are unproven and still before the courts, it would be inappropriate to further comment,” she said.

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The employees were arrested in Hong Kong in August, Guo said.

They’re now awaiting trial in Macau, a place that is known as the “Las Vegas of the East.”

For their part, Mounties confirmed that “we have heard some of the allegations being mentioned about us.”

“At this time, we are not in a position to comment about ongoing investigations,” said Richmond RCMP Cpl. Dennis Hwang.

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The Law Society of British Columbia has also launched an investigation into the loss of the money.

On Monday, Guo told reporters that the society had cleared her of any wrongdoing.

But law society spokesman David Jordan said that its investigation of Guo is “ongoing.”

“It is a matter of public record that in order to protect the public, the Law Society sought and received from the courts custodianship of the trust accounts involving the funds in question and all the affected files,” he said.