Tran Mob Fixed Shuffles in 29 Casinos

One of the founders of a crime organization dubbed the “Tran Organization” pleaded guilty on Friday in San Diego to conspiring to cheat casinos -- including Indian-owned gambling establishments such as the Mohegan Sun -- across the United States out of millions of dollars, according to a report obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police from the Department of Justice.

Van Thu Tran entered her guilty plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Anthony J. Battaglia, subject to the final acceptance of the plea by U.S. District Judge John A. Houston.

A three-count indictment was returned in San Diego on May 22, 2007 which charged Van Thu Tran and 13 other suspects with one count of conspiracy to participate in the affairs of a racketeering enterprise; one count of conspiracy to commit several offenses against the United States, including conspiracy to steal money and other property from Indian tribal casinos; and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The indictment also charged five separate individuals each with one count of conspiracy to commit several offenses against the United States, including conspiracy to steal money and other property from Indian tribal casinos; and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

In her plea agreement, Van Thu Tran, 45, admitted that in August 2002, she and her co-conspirators Phuong Quoc Truong, Tai Khiem Tran, and others created a criminal enterprise defined in the indictment as the Tran Organization, based in San Diego and elsewhere, for the purpose of orgnaized cheating at gambling casinos across the United States. In her plea agreement, Van Thu Tran also admitted that she and her co-conspirators unlawfully obtained up to $7 million while cheating at cards in casinos. As part of her plea agreement, Van Thu Tran agreed to the forfeiture of her assets, including jewelry.

“Today’s guilty plea by the co-founder of the Tran Organization marks the final chapter for a group that targeted as many as 29 casinos in the United States and Canada in their card cheating scheme,” said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer.

“Using false shuffles, specially developed computer programs, concealed microphones and transmitters, and a web of co-conspirators, Van Thu Tran and her co-conspirators obtained up to $7 million during card cheats. With the exception of two fugitives, every member of the organization has now been convicted. As this case shows, our prosecutors and agents will work relentlessly with federal, state, local and foreign authorities to dismantle organized criminal enterprises like the Tran Organization,” Breuer explained.

At sentencing, scheduled for April 11, 2011, Van Thu Tran faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture of certain assets and payment of restitution to the victims.--http://www.examiner.com/public-safety-in-national/casinos-throughout-u-s-targeted-by-crime-group?render=print#print

Doesnt say they tried to get themselves hired as dealers but I suspect so.

I guess you have to hear about such once in a while to understand how you get treated sometimes.

Any details? Was it at Blackjack only? Baccarat? Machines involved? Management people? Dealers?

Quote: SOOPOO

Any details? Was it at Blackjack only? Baccarat? Machines involved? Management people? Dealers?

The rest of the article at the link includes a load of details like, "According to the three indictments, the defendants and others executed a “false shuffle” cheating scheme at casinos in the United States and Canada during blackjack and mini-baccarat games," as well as the names of all the casinos that were scammed. Because of forum rules, the entire article cannot be posted here.

Exactly what are they supposed to have done? Shuffle tracking? That ain't illegal.

From the description, this smells bad, but obviously, we need more details.

Quote: mkl654321

Exactly what are they supposed to have done? Shuffle tracking? That ain't illegal.

From the description, this smells bad, but obviously, we need more details.

That is precisely why, pursuant to forum rules, the link is posted.

Quote: SanchoPanza

That is precisely why, pursuant to forum rules, the link is posted.

OK, I had hoped to get a quick answer without having to copy and paste the link, or suffer through a Netflix popup ad, but I managed to get to the article. It appear that this WAS a shuffle tracking scheme of some sort, but went beyond the boundaries when they bribed dealers to do false shuffles.

I wonder just how successful they were, and how much money they actually won. The casinos say that the Tran gang won a jillion skillion dollars over the course of seven years, but of course they would say that. If their conspiracy worked the way it supposedly did, then the casinos would have seen a repeated pattern of Vietnamese people suddenly leaping into games after a shuffle, making huge bets, winning virtually all of those bets, then vanishing. It's ridiculous to think that this pattern never would have aroused suspicion. (And the bets would have had to have been pretty big to offset the high overhead of bribing all those dealers and pit bosses and cocktail waitresses and janitors.)

My guess is that there's a lot here that we aren't being told, and that the massive Tran Criminal Conspiracy actually LOST gobs of money over seven years, and that they were arrested when they finally started to win.

Quote: mkl654321

OK, I had hoped to get a quick answer without having to copy and paste the link, or suffer through a Netflix popup ad, but I managed to get to the article.

The link is hyperlinked and should not need copying and pasting. In Firefox, add-ons like Adblock and NoScript, among others, take care of popup crap.

Quote: SanchoPanza

The link is hyperlinked and should not need copying and pasting. ...

Actually, it does not appear to be hyperlinked in your original post. See below how it appears (at least in my Firefox browser):

Quote: SanchoPanza

At sentencing, scheduled for April 11, 2011, Van Thu Tran faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture of certain assets and payment of restitution to the victims.--http://www.examiner.com/public-safety-in-national/casinos-throughout-u-s-targeted-by-crime-group?render=print#print

To see how to enter links on this forum, click on the "Click here for formatting codes" button when posting.

Interesting that 27 of the 29 casinos were outside Nevada and they ignored Atlantic City altogether. Coincidence? Perhaps the constant travel helped them maintain anonymity. Or perhaps Nevada & A.C. are more sophisticated at catching cheats.

It wasn't shuffle tracking, it was a false shuffle. The Tran gang would copy down the order of the cards on a scorecard, and then get the colluding dealer to leave a block of cards unshuffled for the next shoe. Then they would place bets accordingly when they saw the sequence come up again. They would probably bet normally on the rest of the shoe at the minimum. This was in baccarat.

This story's been in the news for a while. I was reading about it last summer. Link here.

What's really interesting is the depth of their operation and the length that they ran it for without being discovered. Please note that in the case of 29 very different casinos, the dealers cheated the casinos; the casino did not cheat the players. Money talk$. I'm surprised they didn't pull this off at Fallsview where there is a significant Asian gambling area. I'm not surprised they pulled it off at Rama.

The dealers were getting $5K to $10K per false shuffle. I am surprised it took them that long to get caught. The spread of bets was supposedly huge, and they were winning the big bets.

About five years ago they caught an executive in Vegas who was getting deal cards by his girlfriend, a young first time dealer several decades younger than he was. They guessed that he had played with her more than 100 times (not 100 deals, 100 playing sessions) before they figured out that he was only making big bets when she was the dealer, and small bets with everyone else.

Well, at least they weren't counting.

Actually, I believe this started to unravel when a Canadian casino got suspicious and someone there happened to talk to a counterpart in Michigan. It was mainly a series of bribes to minibaccarat dealers so that the sequence of the next several cards would be known and proper Banker/Player/Tie decisions could be made. The entire shoe didn't have to be known, just a segment of the cards had to be known.

Tran is a very common name. They probably should have recruited some Occidentals as "cover". The real problem with this sort of stuff is that often the perpetrators are so darned greedy that they don't spread the wealth around and hire some broads or some innocent-looking beer belly from a blue collar background.

That guy who earned himself some serious prison time making a string of highly profitable late bets at craps tables all across the USA would often bribe Boxmen. A quick five thousand dollars in the men's room can be profitable for a past poster at a dice table.

On-edit: One woman doing her first pay and collect at a Vegas casino went up to the Israeli mathematician's room and two gold-chain bedecked Blacks were introduced to her as being "cover" for the team of Jews with lasers at the roulette table. Now I have an idea, as did she, that this was not entirely true about miniature lasers in watches and rings. So I I guess this has to be taken with a grain of salt but a good deal of cheaters at a casino simply stand out too much. Men sitting at a table who have no women with them and who don't look around at any of the passing scenery could be gay but usually they are cheating.

Scheduled on "American Greed" for Wednesday at 10 p.m. Eastern and Thursday at 1 a.m. Eastern according to TVGuide.com.

"Episode Detail: The Tran Organization: Blackjack Cheaters - American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals
The story of Van Thu Tran, who led a criminal enterprise that cheated casinos out of millions of dollars."

Nice. Thanks for the heads up!

ZCore13

Quote: FleaStiff

Men sitting at a table who have no women with them and who don't look around at any of the passing scenery could be gay but usually they are cheating.

I see quite a few like this in Reno...I thought they were all just gay...now that I think about it...if they were cheating..why play only minimum?

Quote: TIMSPEED

...if they were cheating..why play only minimum?

Well, men using up their pension checks perhaps?

Whether it be Blackjack or Baccarat, only the money changes but the answer stays the same.

The Tran cheating was based on the gang "buying a false shuffle", in other words paying the dealer generously for a few moments work and letting the dealer keep his job since the take was going to be minor and would not arouse casino suspicion since the loss would be past history by the time the computers discovered it, if they ever discovered it at all.

The False Shuffle is simple.
Start with an unopened deck and go thru all the normal motions but by applying a bit of pressure protect a slug of cards from being shuffled during the washing and keep that slug intact during later riffles and later shuffling.

An unopened deck has the cards in a certain order.
That order is Ace through King and each of the four suits appears in a certain order, for instance all the spades are always last in the deck.

So a "slug" is any segment of cards that remains in the original "in the box" order even if the slug's sequence spans differing suits.

So how do the cheaters know when the "slug" begins and ends? Simple. Although they do not know the exact number of cards in the slug and can not predict its ending card, they do know the beginning of the slug. They know this by being roughly aware of where the slug is within the shoe and by simply seeing the beginning of the slug as it is dealt.

So then the question becomes one that will make all you math types salivate and grin like a maniac.

Out of a total of D decks of cards, how many Pseudo-Slugs appear if the dealer is honest and does a good washing? And how lengthy are those Pseudo-Slugs that appear but are the simple result of chance. After that is determined one might be able to look at a False Shuffle wherein the dealer has not properly washed the cards but has instead protected a slug and kept it protected during all subsequent strips and riffles.

It should then be fairly easy for casinos to keep a dealer honest not only by watching how he washes the cards but by watching the sequences as they come out of the shoe and just "happen" to constitute slugs that are still in the original "in the box" sequence.

not sure what you mean by "in the box"
they were tracking slugs that had been DEALT at bj and mini-bac.
they were already out of the box, shuffled, dealt, discarded.
the entire shoe was tracked.
a slug was left unshuffled.
when the sequenced cards were detected (two or three in a row)
the bets went up.
these were not unopened decks.
they were doing this at mini-bac, not midi or big.
therfore the cards are reused.

I thought the CNBC American Greed show was pretty good. As a Southern California resident that is up in Washington State marketing to the Tribal Properties up there, it was a little disconcerting to see so many of the effective properties be places I have been inside.

Nooksack River is a 10 table property (used to 12).....I can't believe the group would pick out that tiny a property and think their level of play wouldn't get scruntinized.

Quote: WongBo

they were doing this at mini-bac, not midi or big. therfore the cards are reused.

In that case casinos would have to record the order of the cards as played and then see that there was no significant slug in the next "as played" sequence. So maybe the idea of a camera inside the shoe is not such a bad one.

The show indicated that the team recorded the order of every card played in a shoe and then the dealer performed a false shuffle of some or all of the cards and the team either waited for the know sequence of cards to start playing out or if the whole shoe was known they could start from the beginning knowing the cards were simply in the reverse order of where they were dealt in the last round.

If you can wait 100+ hands, you might figure out where the Aces are in Blackjack.
*Nobody got that kind of time*

Quote: ChumpChange

If you can wait 100+ hands, you might figure out where the Aces are in Blackjack.
*Nobody got that kind of time*

OMG, ChumpChange. Did someone set you homework of going through all the 6 year old threads and breathing life into them :o)