In the crosshairs of the RCMP

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) suspect the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world, of laundering its dirty money through a casino in Kahnawake, south of Montreal. According to what has been learned The Presspolice forces from three countries are currently investigating an alleged cartel money launderer who allegedly infiltrated the gaming industry on the Mohawk reservation.

“It’s time to win at the Magic Palace,” the ad proclaims. Located on Route 132, in the heart of Kahnawake, a few minutes from Montreal, the games room has nothing to envy of other establishments of its kind: illuminated poster visible from a good distance, huge free parking, upscale restaurant, refreshments free for players, security guards and attentive staff.

Even if Loto-Québec frequently repeats that the private gaming industry in indigenous territories is illegal, the clientele remains there.

During the passage of The Press recently, in broad daylight, the place was crowded with enthusiastic players who had come from several surrounding towns to sit at one of the 400 state-of-the-art video lottery machines. A selection almost as abundant as at the Mont-Tremblant casino, for comparison.

The only particularity: the inscriptions of several of the Magic Palace slot machines are in Spanish. Few people know it, but the establishment maintains close links with Mexico, through the involvement of a Mexican casino magnate established on the island of Montreal: Luftar Hysa.

Alliance with “El Mayo”

Mr. Hysa, a businessman born in Albania, made headlines in Mexico in September 2022 for his alleged links to organized crime: two competing newspapers, El UniversalThen Mileniocited Mexican federal security sources as saying he struck a deal to launder money for the Sinaloa cartel.

El Universal claims that according to government intelligence services, the agreement was made between the Hysa family and Ismael Zambada Garcia, alias “El Mayo”, leader of a faction of the cartel, in order to reinvest the profits of drug trafficking in the legal economy through real estate or tourism projects.

“In particular, they identified that El Mayo established links with the Luftar brothers, Arben, Fatos and Ramiz Hysa, an Albanian criminal group that is in the crosshairs of financial authorities due to significant irregular economic activity recorded in the tourism and casino sector, both in Mexico and Albania,” the newspaper said.

“Currently, according to federal authorities, the Albanians are carrying out an operation on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel aimed at transferring millions of dollars to their country through front companies,” the newspaper continued.

The newspaper Milenio cited sources from the Mexican government’s “security cabinet”, who came to the same conclusion and added that part of the money laundering was done through “casinos located in the north of Mexico”.

In statements to several Mexican and Albanian media outlets, Mr. Hysa and his representatives vigorously denied any links to cartels or drug money.

Delicate investigation

However, according to court documents obtained by The Pressthe RCMP also believes that Luftar Hysa recycles money from Mexican traffickers and that he uses a casino in Kahnawake to do so.

“Everything indicates that Luftar Ali HYSA infiltrated the Kahnawake Indian reservation to facilitate money laundering activities on behalf of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, as well as for his own account,” says a police investigator in a denunciation under oath filed at the Montreal courthouse.

The investigator claims that the RCMP’s national criminal intelligence team considers Mr. Hysa to be an international money launderer established in Quebec. She notes that the businessman constantly travels back and forth between Montreal, Mexico and Europe.

The police officer also reveals that the authorities of Albania requested the help of the Canadian police to investigate Luftar Hysa. In their request, they mention that the businessman “is suspected of being part of a criminal group with activities of laundering the proceeds of crime in Mexico, Canada, Panama, Poland and Albania”.

“The group would own 30 casinos and restaurants in Mexico, Canada, Belize and Poland to facilitate its activities,” specifies the investigator in her summary of the Albanian request.

Due to the very tense historical context, it has been difficult for the Canadian police to intervene in Mohawk territory since the Oka Crisis of 1990. But the documents obtained by The Press show that the RCMP worked on the outskirts in order to get closer to its target: after reading the denunciation filed at the courthouse by the investigators, a justice of the peace ordered the CIBC Bank and Desjardins to provide the police with the statements banks of Mr. Hysa and certain companies.

When questioned about this file on Monday, Dwayne Zacharie, the head of the Peacekeepers, the Kahnawake police, simply emphasized that his agents had proven to be valuable collaborators in several files for off-reserve police services.

“The Kahnawake Peacekeepers work with several police organizations and we work in cooperation with any agency that needs our expertise,” he declared without commenting further.

Officially, Luftar Hysa is not publicly listed as the owner of the Magic Palace. However, he mentioned in an interview on Albanian television that he is the owner of the Mirela restaurant, located inside the casino, which also bears his wife’s name.

When Poker Palace, the ancestor of the Magic Palace, renovated its facilities and undertook to equip itself with professional catering equipment, in 2017, the invoices were also made in the name of the Poker Palace of Kahnawake, but the payment of $220,000 came from Luftar Hysa, show documents filed in Superior Court as part of a contractual dispute.

On Google, a satisfied consumer review published about the Magic Palace also includes a photo of Luftar Hysa, smiling, plates in hand. The RCMP also say they saw him there during their investigation.

Three negative referendums

The opening of the Magic Palace was controversial in Kahnawake. The population of the reserve has voted against the opening of casinos three times through referendums over the years. However, the establishment was able to establish itself thanks to a pilot project concerning video lotteries which must eventually be re-evaluated by the band council (the council informed The Press that he did not wish to discuss this issue publicly, because it is an internal debate within the community).

In an interview with The Canadian Press, a council representative said last year that the vast majority of customers come from outside the reserve. The pilot project provided for the establishment to pay royalties to the band council. The Magic Palace also made an additional donation of 1 million to the community last year for the construction of a new cultural center.

The activities of the Magic Palace are supervised by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which imposes strict controls aimed at limiting any attempt at financial embezzlement: upon entry, each customer must show identification with an address and provide an active telephone number and have their photo taken for identification purposes.

But in its denunciation presented to the justice of the peace, the RCMP mentions that part of the funds transacted by the establishment nevertheless seem to slip through the cracks. The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada (FINTRAC), the federal agency responsible for monitoring the financial sector, raised a red flag in March 2023 regarding “possible money laundering activities, specifically the Kahnawake Indian Reserve in Albania by Luftar Ali Hysa”.

A report sent to the RCMP by the target organization Luftar Hysa, but also its construction company in Albania, Valona Konstruksion, as well as the Mohawk entrepreneur Stanley Myiow, who presents himself as the owner of the Magic Palace.

The FINTRAC report mentions a series of transactions deemed suspicious:

• from 2013 to 2019, Luftar Hysa received more than 209 wire transfers totaling $3.2 million from Mexico, which it immediately exhausted through outgoing transfers or checks;
• the Mirela restaurant, which Hysa says he owns, sent $28 million to Albania, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the United States and Italy in less than a year, from 2019 to 2020;
• Stanley Myiow and the Hysa family’s construction company in Albania are mentioned in “more than 50 suspicious activity reports” from FINTRAC, worth a total of C$28 million;
• between 2018 and 2020, Stanley Myiow sent $1.3 million to the Hysa family’s construction company in Albania;
• In 2020, Mirela Restaurant carried out a series of transactions deemed suspicious worth $85,000 for the benefit of Mr. Hysa’s wife.

Counteract spinning

In an effort to find out more about Luftar Hysa, police officers followed the businessman while he was driving his Rolls-Royce Cullinan SUV, worth more than half a million dollars. million bucks. According to the RCMP report, Mr. Hysa detected the shadowing, he confronted the police officer who was following him, then began to follow the officer himself, in a role reversal.

Based on all this information, the RCMP claims in its denunciation that it has reasonable grounds to suspect that Luftar Hysa is engaged in laundering the proceeds of crime. The police force, however, declined to comment further for this report.

The Press tried to obtain explanations from the businessman by contacting him at one of the seven telephone numbers registered in his name in Quebec. We got no response from him. His son Fabjon Hysa, who is listed as vice president of one of the family’s gambling businesses, said he was unable to help. A woman who answered another of the businessman’s numbers said he was currently out of the country and she was not authorized to provide us with an email address to reach him.

Mr. Hysa’s two Quebec lawyers also declined to comment after receiving a detailed list of questions. Stanley Myiow did not respond to our messages.