Some of Crown Resorts’ high-roller customers will have soon have to prove their worth as the brand has instructed them to provide evidence that they possess assets worth over $2.5 million or that they earn more than $250,000 a year. This formed part of a delayed initiative to eliminate money laundering at its Melbourne and Perth casinos.
Some ‘black card’ holders have received declaration forms and will also have to verify their wealth or salaries by a professional accountant. Some will also need to disclose their occupation, employment, and/or business ownership information for verification.
Failing to meet the above requirements could result in players being banned from Crown’s gaming tables or having their reward membership services, which include access to VIP rooms, terminated.
Crown issued a warning to those required to submit declarations that their information will be utilised for customer identification processes and could be shared with government agencies or “third parties for the purpose of undertaking additional checks”.
Questions levelled at Crown by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald went unanswered with the company refusing to confirm whether other high-roller classes, including platinum, gold, and silver card holders, would also need to make declarations regarding their wealth, salaries, and employment information.
This recent development is a result of an inquiry by the NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority that exposed a myriad of oversight failures, most specifically at Crown’s flagship Melbourne casino.
The public inquiry, which took over 60 days, revealed a succession of “specific failings and shortcomings” that include recurring non-compliance with anti-money-laundering laws, ties to dodgy junket operators in China, and the “deleterious” impact of the continued presence of major shareholder, James Packer.
Crown management confessed that the company’s approach to curbing money-laundering has been severely inadequate and promised to implement a series of new compliance measures.
Naomi Sharp, SC, the counsel assisting the inquiry, criticised Crown, saying that their actions and promises were “too little too late”.
The opening of Crown’s $2 billion Barangaroo Casino in Sydney has been indefinitely delayed as a result of the process.
Ms Sharp relayed to the inquiry that “Crown Sydney is not suitable … to hold the licence and Crown Resorts is not suitable to be a close associate of the licensee”.
In September 2019, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre tabled its reservations regarding Crown’s operations during a compliance assessment of Crown Melbourne’s management of customers. The organisation stated that Crown was “identified as high-risk and politically exposed persons”.
That AUSTRAC probe followed soon after The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes broke the news that some of Crown’s most valuable high roller “junket” tour partners were in cahoots with influential Asian criminal syndicates and money launderers. This revelation ultimately resulted in the initiation of the NSW inquiry.
AUSTRAC chief executive Nicole Rose sent out a renewed warning regarding the junket sector, stating that they are the source of numerous criminal threats to the Australian casino industry.
She elaborated further in a statement, saying, “Money laundering and financial crime enables serious criminal activity, such as drug trafficking and human trafficking, which causes harm to our communities.”
