“Problem Gamblers Recruited into Drug Trade”

Investigative Unit: Gambling Addicts Twice Exploited
by Chad Hills

Not only are problem and pathologically addicted gamblers exploited by casinos and other gambling operations, now their desperate addiction is being exploited again to perform criminal drug trading in return for money. It’s a grievous story of one vice exploiting another vice; all the while, lives are being destroyed and criminal drug trafficking is multiplied.

ABC News Online Investigative Unit out of Australia released finding in their article, “Problem Gamblers Recruited into Drug Trade.”

“The investigation by the ABC’s News Online Investigative Unit found criminal networks are actively recruiting problem gamblers playing poker machines at pubs and clubs, to traffic heroin and cultivate cannabis.

“Of the more than 600 ethnic Vietnamese drug offenders surveyed, 72 per cent said they were enticed into the drug trade to pay their gambling debts.”

Here’s how gambling addiction feeds into criminal drug trafficking, according to the ABC News Online Investigative Unit:

•Organised crime networks observe gamblers in pubs and clubs and cultivate friendships
•They watch a problem gambler lose large sums of money and offer a cash loan
•They continue lending money and do not seek repayment
•They call in the loan once the debt is built up and cannot be repaid
•The problem gambler is asked to engage in criminal activity to repay the loan
•This week, police in Sydney’s south-west have continued to raid homes as part of Strike Force Zambesi, which has seized hydroponic cannabis worth an estimated street value of $25 million since March.
•So far, half of those interviewed by police blame gambling debts for their crimes.