The Bergin report was explicitly tasked as part of its terms of reference with examining whether a Crown Resorts subsidiary was a “suitable person” to hold Sydney’s second casino licence,with reference to allegations aired in media reports.
The terms of reference referred to reports by the Nine Network,The Sydney Morning Herald andThe Age - all owned by Nine Entertainment Company - that Crown engaged in money-laundering and “partnered with junket operators with links to drug traffickers,money launderers,human traffickers,and organised crime groups”.
Crown’s relationship with junkets - which arrange for wealthy Chinese gamblers to travel to overseas casinos - is what got it in this mess in the first place,after Nine mastheads revealed in 2019 that many of its most important junket partners were closely linked to powerful Asian crime gangs.
Commissioner Patricia Bergin.Credit:
Commissioner Patricia Bergin examined the junket allegations in her report and concluded that “the veracity of the Media Allegations that there were Junket operators with which Crown partnered that had links to organised crime is established”,but she did not find the company was wilfully blind or recklessly indifferent to this.
“In August 2020 the Crown Board resolved to suspend its relationships with all Junket operators,and on 17 November 2020 decided to end its Junket operation altogether subject to certain conditions,” the report said.
Commissioner Bergin recommended that the NSW Casino Control Act be amended to prohibit casino operators in NSW from dealing with junket operators.
“The extant and developing threats of the infiltration of organised crime into casinos is such that the[NSW gaming] Authority and the Government would be justified in prohibiting the operation of Junkets in New South Wales casinos,” the report said.
“This is really the only way that the Authority,the Government,the casino operators and the community can be sure that such infiltration does not occur through these mechanisms.”
Commissioner Bergin said Crown had adopted an approach that it was “deeply wronged by a shocking and deceptive media campaign against it”,but the junket allegations were true.