{"id":12646,"date":"2020-12-13T18:59:33","date_gmt":"2020-12-13T18:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=12646"},"modified":"2026-04-23T23:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T02:16:19","slug":"austrac-warns-over-high-risk-of-junket-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/austrac-warns-over-high-risk-of-junket-operations","title":{"rendered":"AUSTRAC warns over \u201chigh risk\u201d of junket operations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Australian financial crimes watchdog has released a complete risk assessment on the sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Australia.- The national financial crimes watchdog AUSTRAC has released a new risk assessment on junket operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The assessment found \u201cthe overall money laundering and terrorism financing risk associated with the junket tour operations sector to be high.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money laundering is identified as the main vulnerability, particularly through the patronage of high-risk customers from foreign jurisdictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To compile the report, AUSTRAC obtained information from banks, casinos, State and commonwealth regulatory and law enforcement agencies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal of the assessment was to help casinos evaluate their level of risk when being exposed to junket operations and to strengthen their controls and protocols for report suspicious activity to AUSTRAC, the watchdog said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AUSTRAC\u2019s chief executive, Nicole Rose, said: \u201cThe information contained in this risk assessment shows that junkets are highly vulnerable to criminal misuse and Australian casinos must do more to mitigate money loundering and terrorism financing risks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I urge casinos to take prompt action by assessing their levels of risk posed by junket operations, strengthening their controls and reporting suspicious activity to AUSTRAC.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report comes days after Rose told a Senate hearing that casinos must monitor<\/a><\/em><\/strong> junket compliance, not AUSTRAC. he added that it would be \u201cpreferable\u201d if all state gaming bodies implemented licensing regimes for junket operators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Australian financial crimes watchdog has released a complete risk assessment on the sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12648,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"AUSTRAC has released a comprehensive risk assessment, categorizing junket operations in Australia as high-risk for money laundering and terrorism financing, particularly from foreign high-risk customers. The watchdog urges Australian casinos to enhance their controls, strengthen protocols for suspicious activity reporting, and proactively mitigate these identified vulnerabilities. This assessment underscores the imperative for robust governance frameworks within the casino sector.","focusai_entities":"AUSTRAC, Nicole Rose","focusai_location":"Australia","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (1.0), tech_data (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"AUSTRAC's Expected Controls?","query":"What specific enhanced controls are AUSTRAC expecting casinos to implement beyond current SAR protocols to mitigate identified junket risks?"},{"label":"Junket Licensing Integration?","query":"How will the proposed state-level junket licensing regimes integrate with or supersede existing federal AML\/CTF obligations for casino operators?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,157,158],"tags":[23793,289,23751],"class_list":["post-12646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-business-news","category-slider-home","tag-austrac","tag-australia","tag-junkets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12646"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12657,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12646\/revisions\/12657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}