Las Vegas Casino Cheat Facing 360 Year Prison Sentence

A Chinese born man who has been convicted of defrauding three Las Vegas casinos out of $1,011,400 is now facing a jail sentence of up to 360 years, as well as $4.5 million in fines.
During a five month period between December 2006 and April 2007, De Rong Shang, 50, along with Yuli Eaton, 47, recruited people to open up bank accounts which were funded by Shang in order to apply for lines of credit at Las Vegas casinos. Once approved, the scam involved obtaining chips from the casino which they would then pretend to lose playing baccarat, whilst secretly transferring the chips to other co-conspirators, who would later cash them.
Subsequently, the recruits would leave the state or country having been paid around $300 for every $10,000 of credit they scammed and by the time the casinos tried to collect on their markers, they would find their accounts either drained or closed. As assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Duncan explains:
“Shang deceived the casinos into believing that the recruits had sufficient funds to pay back the casinos. In doing so, the defendant caused monetary losses to the casinos while enriching himself with proceeds from the fraudulent scheme.”
Falling prey to the fraud was the Bank of America and three Station Casinos, which includes Red Rock, Green Valley Ranch and Palace Station. De Rong Shang is now due to receive his sentence on July 16th, 2012.
In the meantime, Shang has become the subject of another FBI investigation in which other Las Vegas casinos were scammed out of millions at the baccarat tables. Apparently, Shang’s group may also have been responsible for defrauding Paris Las Vegas out of $550,000 while awaiting trial. In addition, as Andrew Duncan explains:
“The defendant was also identified as part of a group attempting to conduct the same scam at Caesars Palace on Oct. 9 and Oct. 12.”