Probation received in money-laundering case

Kim Smith

Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2000 | 10:38 a.m.

A Las Vegas couple who undercover officers said agreed to launder more than $1 million they believed to be drug money were given five years probation Monday.

U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben also ordered Sue Ying Wong, 40, and Raymond Yin, 61, to spend three months in a halfway house and three months under house arrest, defense attorney Karen Winckler said.

They have 30 days to turn themselves in at the Clark Center halfway house in Las Vegas, Winckler said.

Wong and Yin were indicted in March 1998 on multiple money-laundering counts following a two-year Metro Police investigation.

According to court documents, Wong and Yin gave undercover officers posing as drug dealers $514,000 in $100 bills in exchange for smaller denominations in the winter of 1997-98.

Wong met the officers while working as the Asian marketing director for Bally's hotel-casino. She told them she knew of several people who would be willing to launder money, but then agreed to do it herself.

Wong eventually introduced the officers to Yin, a retired radiologist, and together they laundered $454,000 of the $514,000, according to court documents. In addition, the pair offered to sell the officers a 2-acre parcel of land in Spring Valley for small denomination currency -- bringing the total amount of money laundered to about $1.2 million.

According to court documents, Yin and Wong received commissions of between 5 percent and 8 percent.

Federal prosecutors got involved in the case because of concerns that Wong was using casino money to launder drug proceeds, but it was later learned she and Yin were using their own money.

The pair forfeited about $627,000 in cash, the Spring Valley property and a 1996 Lexus as part of an agreement to plead guilty, Winckler said.

Kim Smith covers federal courts and agencies for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-2321 or by e-mail at kimberley@lasvegassun.com

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