Four indicted in conspiracy to cheat slots

Wednesday, Sept. 29, 1999 | 11:26 a.m.

Four Las Vegas residents have been indicted in connection with a conspiracy to launder fraudulent slot machine winnings at Nevada casinos.

FBI spokesman Kevin Caudle said the scheme resulted in losses of anywhere from $300,000 to several million dollars. He said an exact loss amount is not known.

Bao Ming Lin, 41, Jin Xie Qiong, 43, Feng Ying Liu, 33, and He Biao Liu, 32, were indicted Tuesday on the conspiracy charge. Caudle said all four suspects are illegal immigrants from China.

According to the indictment, the defendants conspired from about February 1998 to about November 1998 to launder their winnings.

The document claims the defendants obtained $1 tokens from Nevada casinos and then turned them into cheating devices by grinding, filing and sanding down the edges.

Members of the group inserted the "shaved" tokens into slot machines at casinos throughout the state, according to the indictment.

"The machine would register a credit for each shaved $1 token," the indictment alleges. "However, when the slot machine paid out, the shaved $1 tokens were not counted, allowing the defendants, and others, to obtain legitimate (tokens), along with his/her shaved $1 tokens from the slot machine."

The defendants achieved the same result by placing $2 tokens in $1 slot machines, according to the indictment.

After playing the slot machines, the document alleges, the defendants sorted out the shaved tokens and cashed the legitimate tokens in at a casino cashier's cage.

Caudle said the four suspects were arrested Sept. 17.