By Dominic Taylor-
A major inquiry has found Crown Resorts, Australia’s largest casino operator, is not suitable to hold a gaming licence in Sydney.
Crown which has already spent A$2.2bn (£1.2bn; $1.7bn) on its new gaming complex which began operating its hotel and retail spaces in December, may not be able to run in the future.
The company was established in 2007 when Publishing & Broadcasting Limited (PBL) divested its gambling assets to Crown Limited. PBL was renamed Consolidated Media Holdings, retaining all of the remaining assets.
In December 2007, Australian gambling company Crown Limited agreed to buy CCR for $1.75 billion- an agreement which ended in March 2009, however, with Crown instead buying a 24.5 percent stake in the company for $370 million, and paying a $50 million termination fee.
The company has been facing separate inquiries into its licences and questions over how it brought in high-roller gamblers, largely from China.
The operator has long been perceived to be dodgy due to allegations of illegal activity for years. Its reputation has taken a big knock. The company was contacted by the country’s financial crime regulator in October 2020 for possible breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.
Crown has casinos in Melbourne and Perth, and is building one in Sydney. Former judge, Commissioner Patricia Bergin , concluded that Crown should only be approved for its new Barangaroo tower casino on Sydney Harbour if it made radical reforms, including the sacking of its executive team.
Two directors were forced to on Wednesday over the findings which confirm money laundering and organised crime links.
Crown is facing calls from some lawmakers for its casino licences in Melbourne and Perth to be suspended. The firm has halted trading on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Crown is majority-owned by billionaire James Packer, the heir of one Australia’s most famous business dynasties who resigned from the board in 2018.
Pecker’s conduct and influence over company culture was strongly criticised in the inquiry’s 751-page report, published on Tuesday.
The New South Wales (NSW) state public inquiry was set up in 2019 after Australian media published allegations of criminal activity at the nation’s largest casino – Crown’s Melbourne venue.
Those reports- combined with an earlier sale of Crown shares to Asian casino operator Melco – prompted regulators to investigate.
For years, Crown and its associates have been dogged by allegations of illegal activity: from machine tampering to money laundering and junkets (paid-for-trips) bringing in high-spending gamblers from Asia.
In her report, commissioner Bergin said organised crime agents had “infiltrated” Crown’s casinos and the company had breached several gambling laws.
She said Crown was “facilitating money laundering, exposing staff to the risk of detention in a foreign jurisdiction and pursuing commercial relationships with individuals” connected to criminal groups.
There was a high probability of money laundering “in the [Melbourne] casino premises with hundreds of thousands of dollars brought into the casino in cooler bags and shopping bags and exchanged for chips and plaques”