Poker Cheat and Casino Cheat Hall of Fame Lady Pleads Guilty to Masterminding Tran Organization Baccarat Scam!

The female co-founder of the criminal organization bearing her last name pled guilty in San Diego federal court yesterday to felony conspiracy in connection with her involvement in the biggest casino cheating scam ever to hit brick and mortar casinos. The key to the scam was recruiting baccarat dealers in dozens of US and Canadian casinos to join their huge scam, which relied on false shuffling to enable the baccarat cheats to scam millions of dollars from several large casinos including the two giant casinos in Connecticut, the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods.

45-year-old Van Thu Tran, who has been inducted into the Casino and Poker Cheats Hall of Fame, admitted that in the summer of 2002, along with convicted co-conspirators Phuong Quoc Truong and Tai Khiem, she helped organize the Tran casino-cheating operation for the purpose of cheating casino baccarat tables in the two countries. She told the court that the cheating organization netted more than $7 Million from the huge baccarat scam (I believe the true figure is more like $20 Million). She agreed to forfeit various assets to the court, including cash, jewelry and cars. She will be sentenced on April 11 and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. There will also be restitution to the casinos victimized (I don't know how much that will be and how it will be distributed). With Miss Tran's plea agreement, that makes the total number of baccarat cheats to have pled guulty in the scam forty-two.

Assistant US Attorney General Larry A. Breuer said of the latest Tran co-conspirator to go down, "Today's guilty plea by the co-founder of the Tran Organization marks the final chapter for a group that targeted as many as twenty-nine casinos in the United States and Canada in their card cheating scheme."

My take: Long live the Trans! What should they do upon their releases from federal prisons? Well, for starters...maybe change their last name! LOL

Seriously: This was the largest and most well-organized massive casino-cheat scam in history that involved inside help from casino employees. These kinds of casino-cheat scams involving so many people always end up getting busted, but I have to say it is miraculous that their cheat scam went on for five or six years before that happened.