Crown's Sydney development at Barangaroo.Credit:Rhett Wyman
Those reports revealed how Crown’s lax controls of its high-roller casino operations enabled and facilitated organised crime and money laundering,which in turn empowered the drug and sex traffickers associated with some of those high-roller operations or"junkets".
The company's advertisement claimed that the stories were full of “unsubstantiated allegations ... and outright falsehoods”. The board's message was also filed with the ASX,which requires it to be accurate under continuous disclosure requirements.
In retrospect,the advertisement must seem ill-advised to those who signed it,including former Liberal minister and Crown chair Helen Noonan as well as directors John Alexander,former AFL boss Andrew Demetriou,former Australian chief medical officer John Horvath and former top public servant Jane Halton (now on the national COVID-19 commission).
Asreported this week,Crown's chief legal officer Joshua Preston has conceded the advertisement and the ASX statement contained at least one glaring inaccuracy and probably more. Crown claimed that its high-roller partner,Suncity was controlled by a reputable and regulated listed company in Hong Kong. Police have already privately debunked this,concluding that Suncity is in fact controlled by a private company run by suspected triad crime bosses.
The multi-billion dollar Suncity partnership has been a focus of the ongoing inquiry presided over by Justice Patricia Bergin. The inquiry has discovered that Crown’s links to criminals and anti-money laundering measures are at least as bad as reported.
For instance,Crown continued its partnership with Suncity despite two due diligence reports warning that the Hong Kongcompany was run by a former member of the 14K organised crime Triad in Macau and that the US government considered him to have criminal links. Crown Melbourne even maintained the links,including a private gaming parlour for Suncity’s exclusive use,after the discovery of $5.6 million in cash stored in a cupboard – an incident that Preston said sent"money-laundering alarms ringing". The inquiry has also heard Crown failed to act on its own reports that raised red flags,and those of anti-money laundering agency AUSTRAC.