Drugs? Hookers? In our fair city?; It’s Vegaski, Comrade!

If your casino or club employs CLS Transportation, today would be a good day to call in sick and take the phone off the hook. Seems the limo fleet of CLS was taking Las Vegas visitors for a ride, running up $2.8 million in fraudulent credit card charges (try explaining those to the wife!), writing rubber checks and taking kickbacks. Better still, the CLS Nine are accused of “promoting prostitution and selling drugs,” according to U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden (left). The latter already has a plethora of high-profile scalps already tacked to his wall, so if Bogden thinks he’s got a case, it’s time to lawyer up pronto. What’s the over/under on when the CLS Nine start to roll one another? Of course, if you live here, many of the accusations in the indictment come as non-surprises. Strip clubs paying kickbacks to cabbies is old news but CLS appears to have raised the stakes considerably. However, when you see one of those mega-super-stretch-limos half a block long or the Humvee-like ones that tower over surrounding traffic, you pretty much assume somebody’s doing blow or getting blown in the back seat, don’t you? What Bogden has done is confirm what one already suspects. The question is, limousine services being such a conspicuous part of the Vegas business scene, how many other CLS-like operations are being run? And how many limo companies are having their offices swept for ‘bugs’ this morning?

It’s been three years since Russian despot Vladimir Putin banished the nation’s casino industry to four remote, borderline areas. Caesars Entertainment kicked the tires of the Azov City region but decided against further involvement. Back in 2009, Putin’s push looked like the sunset of casino gambling in Russia. However, activity is heating up considerably in Vladivostok. Since Japan‘s parliament can’t decide whether to fish or cut bait on casino legalization, Vladivostok’s planned Ussuri Bay Resort is within easy striking range of that much-coveted market. Better still, the borders of North Korea and China are a brief drive distant. Imagine all those filched Communist Party funds being “outsourced” onto Russian baccarat tables.

With an alacrity and thrift that makes us Yanks look like slackers, the Nash-Dom Primorye company is fast-tracking five casinos for readiness by 2016 — and 11 more, plus artificial beaches and golf courses, in another six years. And all for a measly $2 billion! (Or so the developers hope.) Heck, Sheldon Adelson can’t build a privy for less than $2 billion. Of course when endemic Russian corruption is taken into account, not to mention the inflationary effect of so much demand for construction materials within such a tight wind0w, that budget projection looks more than slightly optimistic. And, according to Russia Beyond the Headlines, this demi-Strip on the Sea of Japan has a disturbing local angle: “There have already been contacts between Russian gangs and their counterparts in Las Vegas largely devoted to learning how best to manage such underworld economies.” Would-be casino developers from the U.S. had better approach with caution.