Ever the facilitators, Bob and I hosted dinner for a few security types the other night. Attending were Jo and Willy Allison, who put on the annual World Game Protection Conference in Las Vegas, at which Bob presented last month; Lieutenant Bob Sebby, who runs the quintessential fraud detail at LVMPD’s Financial/Property Crime Bureau; his wife, Cynde Beer, who is a mortgage fraud investigator; and LVMPD’s Detective Kim Thomas, an international authority on forgery. Kim’s also written a damn good book, Vegas: One Cop’s Journey. I reviewed it here.

Among us, we pretty much cover the gamut of theft. But on this night, the featured topic was how high-tech theft is moving into casinos. There’s nothing new about abusing credit cards, the magnetic data on them, shared-value cards, and washed or stolen checks. But bring those into the virtual money palace of a casino, and security-types begin to quake. With Eastern European organized crime gangs getting more sophisticated than ever, a cop’s gotta be well-fortified to stay on top. Or keep up. I’ve done my part:

Menu

• Neon cocktails (Campari, Aperol, Midori, Absinthe, Ricard)
• Aunt Diane’s special spinach salad
• Grilled snapper filet on sweet potato mash, with
• Orange-avocado-onion-cilantro-chili salsa
• Watercress
• Black rice
• Garlic broccoli salad
• Fresh melange of pomelo, pomegranate, jackfruit, mango,
  and strawberries, with jackfruit-flavored coconut milk