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(CNS): Premier Wayne Panton, Deputy Governor Franz Manderson and Attorney General Sam Bulgin have all stressed that law enforcement agencies in the Cayman Islands are increasingly concerned that illegal gambling here is directly connected to international and organised crime syndicates and is generating as much as $50 million each year in illicit earnings.
Panton presented the Gambling (Amendment) Bill, 2022 on Wednesday, following a debate in the House on a referendum for a national lottery, and said that illegal gambling was not a victimless crime as it is now fuelling much of the local gun violence.
He said the current law was inadequate to deal with the growing criminality associated with the various numbers games and betting. Successive governments have been “kicking the can down the road” on this issue for years, and the neglect and widespread acceptance of illegal gambling has allowed this crime to escalate.
“We must address these open violations of the law. Viewing illegal gambling as a victimless crime shrouds the insidious nature of the crime,” the premier said, adding that officials have been able to piece together the scale of the illicit gambling sector in Cayman. “I am convinced we are not dealing with a small, unsophisticated, friendly, neighbourhood game of bingo. This is about participants in illegal gambling being directly facilitated and supported by organised crime that benefits international syndicates.”
He warned about the risk to the jurisdiction from the financial crimes associated with the cash generated from the illegal games as well as the money laundering and tax evasion in the countries where the profits are being remitted. Panton said there is even evidence that false work permits are being secured for people for a legitimate operation when their real job is actually selling illegal numbers.
“The culture of illegal gambling in our country has become shockingly acceptable,” he said. If the people vote ‘yes’ in the planned referendum, the aim is to offer the option of a controlled and regulated national lottery as an alternative, while the law is changed to deal with illegal operations, he explained.
“Illegal numbers games and race-horse betting… are largely controlled by these on-island criminal gangs with international connections,” Panton said. “That raises… national security issues, and it raises concerns around our safety and integrity as a country and much more than that.”
The premier also noted the cruelty to animals associated with the “barbaric” and “un-Caymanian” cockfighting rings that people bet on heavily, and said he was aware that roosters had been imported on drug canoes for cockfighting. Dogfighting is also increasing and the animals live cruel and miserable lives. “We don’t want this for Cayman,” he added.
Gun crime is being fuelled by illegal gambling, especially in relation to armed robberies, as many of the hold-ups over the last few months have involved victims who were involved in illegal gambling. It has also resulted in murder, he said, noting the fatal shooting of retired prison officer Harry Elliott at a gambling shop in George Town in April.
The premier said the harm and costs to society were becoming more obvious, as he justified the amendments to the legislation, which are already stirring up controversy.
DG Manderson said the police believe that illegal gambling in Cayman is now run by sophisticated criminal syndicates with proper hierarchical structures, generating significant assets, which are being transferred overseas and feeding a black market and underground economy locally.
He explained that intelligence suggests there are a number of crime groups operating the illegal business, and they are also laundering money here. He said the street-level sellers are not usually local people, and that various legitimate small businesses are used to sell the numbers from foreign lotteries.
Robbers are targetting these businesses, which are holding significant quantities of cash generated by illegal gaming, estimated to be between CI$30M and $50M annually and perhaps much more, he said. “Organised crime has taken advantage of the gap in the market,” Manderson added, noting the lack of any legal lottery options here
He explained that the illegal games are based on regional lotteries, such as the Jamaica Red Ball, which plays six times a day, seven days a week, and many people are selling tickets for the Honduran lotteries at the weekend. Jamaican horse race betting is also very popular all over Grand Cayman.
The deputy governor said there was considerable underreporting of violent crimes linked to gambling, but ten at least ten robberies and violent incidents could be linked to gambling this year alone, including Elliott’s murder.
As a result, the government is significantly increasing penalties for those running illegal gambling rings as well as those taking part. Panton said the parliament had a duty to the Constitution and the people to uphold the law and try to protect people from crime. He said the changes to legislation would help to deter illicit gambling and the criminality surrounding it, while the plan to roll out a legal, regulated national lottery would offer people an alternative.
But not all of his colleagues agreed.
McKeeva Bush (WBW) tabled an amendment to the bill to legitimise the current situation, allowing small business owners to sell numbers for lotteries across the region lawfully with licences. Bush, who is well known to patronise casinos when he travels overseas, said he did not think increasing the fines for taking part in gambling would “stop the urge for people to buy numbers”.
He said that fines needed to be increased because “some were ridiculous”, but it was “a dream” to think it would stop illegal gambling as it is now extensive. If the House was serious about addressing the criminality, he said, “the way to stop the illegal numbers game is to make it legal”. Bush also said that the government should take some of the proceeds but did not explain how.
He was followed by Sir Alden McLaughlin (RED), who implied that the government’s position on the issue of gambling was contradictory. On the one hand, it was planning to hold a referendum to ask the people if they want a legal national lottery. On the other, they are increasing penalties “to put as many Caymanians as they can in jail to keep them from buying and selling numbers” because it’s such a bad thing.
McLaughlin said the logic of that “eludes me”. Suggesting that the premier did not truly understand “how endemic this is”, he pointed out that anyone can buy numbers multiple times a day. He accepted that it does fuel crime but noted that legitimate businesses are also frequently robbed.
“Without question, number sellers get robbed,” he said, but so do restaurants, bars, gas stations and stores where no one is selling numbers. McLaughlin said that most people who buy numbers are Caymanian, not “big rich people” but ordinary people who have been playing numbers for decades.
“Do you know how many old people, senior citizens, buy numbers? …We gonna put these people in jail?” he asked, as he painted a picture of little old ladies being brought to court in their wheelchairs. “What is the government trying to achieve?” McLaughlin asked. He suggested that increasing penalties would not stop the crime but would provide motivation for the police to go and arrest easy targets and “the little people”.
“I don’t mean dwarfs… but those of meagre means” who go get numbers, he said, noting that sellers never get convicted. He said a national lottery would not serve as a real alternative, given the current frequency that people can access numbers and the multiple chances available to win.
McLaughlin lent his support to the idea of examining the possibility of legitimising the current system to tackle the problem without the proposed “draconian approach of sending masses of Caymanians to jail”.
He also revealed that the same bill, with very few differences, was “foisted upon me as premier to bring down here in 2018”, but he had rejected it because he knew what the result would be for the people. He said that in his view the proposed changes would be “a social disaster”.
The debate was adjourned late Wednesday evening and is expected to be picked back up when members return to parliament on Monday. MPs spent another heated session on Thursday dealing with private members’ motions but opted not to sit Friday because of the planned House of Parliament’s Christmas staff function.
See the debate on CIGTV below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYJcEzhTBHo
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