Online gambling

Hugo Do was a double dealer. He was both an Ontario Lottery and Gaming employee, working at the Brantford casino, and a member of the notorious Tran Organization.

 

Do -- whose real name was Toan Duc Do -- was arrested in Brantford three years ago, but there was little fanfare by design when he and two players were charged with cheat at play.

 

No one knew about the Tran Organization and that was just the way police preferred it.

 

"There was a big picture investigation going on, plus what was happening in the U. S.," explains OPP Det.-Const. Dave Balun.

 

"We couldn't disclose how big this group was."

 

Now, members of the group have pleaded guilty or are going through preliminary hearings in Ontario. Two massive indictments also have been unsealed against the group in the United States.

 

The gang is charged with defrauding casinos across North America of millions of dollars.

 

In Brantford, they got away with just $70,000 before the police shut down the operation, but at Casino Rama the gang took more than $2 million. In the U. S., the take was more than $30 million.

 

In each case, the key to the organization's success was a clever bit of card trickery taught to dealers, who were either bribed to participate, or were family relations in on the sting.

 

In some places, the team used tiny microphones and earpieces to run its con, but in Brantford it was old-fashioned sleight-of-hand and an established set of signals that let them walk away with the winnings.

 

Balun, who was one of six or seven officers watching every move of the gang for almost a month, said the OPP was tipped off that the Tran Organization was coming to town.