Video footage showing dozens of “bricks” of $50 and $100 notes –
hundreds of thousands of dollars worth – being casually handed over from
a shopping bag in a high-rollers’ room at Melbourne’s Crown Casino have
sparked renewed calls for a royal commission into alleged criminality
at the casino.
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The footage, shot on Crown’s own security cameras, shows an unknown man
handing over hundreds of thousands of dollars in Australian currency
inside the Suncity junket room at Crown. He pulls the money, wrapped in
elastic bands, from a freezer shopping bag, and waits, and appears to
speak with friends and casino staff while it is exchanged for high-value
casino chips.
Suncity is a Macau-based gambling tour operator that flies in wealthy
Chinese gamblers to Australian casinos. It has a dedicated gaming room
at Crown.The footage was leaked by three Victorian state gambling
inspectors turned whistleblowers and released publicly by the
independent member for Clark, Andrew Wilkie, who has repeatedly called
for a royal commission into the casino.
“People probably think that everything that goes on is squeaky clean ...
,” one of the whistleblowers says on the footage, his voice obscured.
“But in fact it’s fucked.“You see people coming in with bags of money,
cash, it’s a junkets room, it’s specially designed for people that come
in from overseas, the Suncity room at Crown.”
The Suncity room faced closure by the Victorian Commission for Gaming
and Liquor Regulation in 2017 over alleged ties to organised crime, but
remains open. The whistleblower said high-rollers in the casino were
never challenged by casino staff.Anybody can walk in with any amount of
money and launder it … Nobody really cares.
“They get to do what they want. They can bring anybody into the casino,
they can bring in as much money as they like, nothing is ever said.”The
whistleblower said a reduced presence of Victoria police inside the
casino meant suspected criminals were able to allegedly launder money
with impunity.
Wilkie has called for a royal commission into Crown, arguing the footage
follows earlier allegations of money laundering, machine tampering,
drug running and domestic violence at the casino. Crown has also been
accused of breaking immigration laws to illegally bring people into
Australia to gamble.
“For many years we’ve been told of shocking crimes occurring at Crown
and now we have new footage that supports these claims,” Wilkie
said.“The inspectors who have provided these videos say countless
millions of dollars are regularly laundered inside Crown. Crown can no
longer claim this isn’t happening. This leaked version was filmed using
Crown’s own security cameras.”Wilkie said Crown’s alleged misconduct
could only occur, and continue to occur, if the casino was confident it
had political cover and if numerous agencies fail to do their jobs.
“This crisis at Crown is multinational, multi-jurisdictional and
multi-agency. This is a demonstration of catastrophic failure on the
part of the major parties, the Victorian Commission for Gambling and
Liquor Regulation, Victoria police, the Australian federal police,
Border Force and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre
(Austrac).”
The Wall