Crown’s anti-money laundering manager Nick Stokes said he tried to raise the issue of money-laundering risks and prevention strategies but was not heard listened to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Australia.- On a new day of public hearings by Victoria\u2019s Royal Commission,\u00a0Nick Stokes<\/strong>, Crown Resorts’ head of financial crime, said Crown’s former legal chief Joshua Preston ignored his concerns about money-laundering risks<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stokes also said he\u00a0tried to increase the anti-money laundering team\u00a0<\/strong>at Crown Resorts, which only had three staff members, but that Preston had said it wasn’t necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to ABC Newspaper, Stokes said: “He would hear me out and he would listen to my views, but on many occasions, he was of the view that ‘casinos had always been that way <\/strong>and that a casino’s not a bank, and the same rules didn’t quite apply’.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Stokes said things had changed<\/strong>\u00a0at Crown Resorts and that he now has a\u00a0team of 20 anti-money laundering staff<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stokes assured: “I have seen that attitude change quite considerably to the point where the business now is very proactive in taking on those first-line responsibilities<\/strong> \u2026 we are looking to build the team further.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crown’s former legal head,\u00a0Joshua Preston, stepped down<\/strong>\u00a0from the company after telling the\u00a0NSW Bergin inquiry<\/a>\u00a0he was unaware whether junket operators were linked to organised crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In February, the GWC prohibited\u00a0Crown Perth<\/a>\u00a0from conducting any junket, premium or privileged player activity.\u00a0Crown Resorts<\/a>\u00a0said last September that it had suspended all junket-related activity\u00a0<\/strong>until June 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Counsel assisting the royal commission\u00a0Penny Neskovcin\u00a0<\/strong>said she received a letter from Crown Resorts in which the company said it\u00a0did not intend to deal with international junket operators<\/strong>\u00a0in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jason Cremona<\/strong>, licensing manager at the Victorian Commission for Gaming and Liquor Regulation (VCGLR) told Victoria\u2019s Royal Commission that Crown had sought to delay the introduction of tighter money-laundering controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cremona said the Victorian regulator gave the casino 11 months to comply with 20 recommendations <\/strong>but that a year later, in July 2019, Crown Resorts had made no move to start recording high rollers\u2019<\/strong> names and transactions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cremona then sent a letter to Crown\u2019s chief legal officer Joshua Preston<\/strong> to say the casino was at risk of not complying with the recommended protocol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He then received a phone call from Crown executive Michelle Fielding<\/strong> saying Preston was \u201cfurious\u201d and that he was going to \u201ccall the minister to complain.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Timothy Bryant<\/strong>, a compliance officer at the VCGLR said\u00a0Crown Resorts\u00a0lied to him about the arrest of 19 Crown executives in China in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bryant said he believed that in some interviews Crown Resorts had lied to him <\/strong>as to \u201cwhat they were not aware of or were aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Victoria\u2019s Royal Commission has also received several written submissions accusing Crown Resorts of causing gambling addiction.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ai Nguyen<\/strong>, a gambling counsellor at the Australian Vietnamese Women\u2019s Association, said Crown Resorts\u2019 24\/7 operating hours<\/strong>, its rewards system and a weak self-exclusion programme <\/strong>failed to help people with gambling problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Crown’s anti-money laundering manager Nick Stokes said he tried to raise the issue of money-laundering risks and prevention strategies but was not heard listened to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":17277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Victoria's Royal Commission hearings have exposed systemic failures at Crown Resorts regarding anti-money laundering (AML) controls and regulatory compliance. Internal warnings were allegedly ignored, and the operator is accused of delaying tighter AML measures and providing misleading information to regulators. These revelations underscore significant governance deficiencies and heightened enterprise risk.","focusai_entities":"Crown Resorts, Nick Stokes, Joshua Preston, Penny Neskovcin, Jason Cremona, Michelle Fielding, Timothy Bryant, Ai Nguyen, Victoria\u2019s Royal Commission, NSW Bergin inquiry, GWC, Victorian Commission for Gaming and Liquor Regulation, ABC Newspaper, Australian Vietnamese Women\u2019s Association","focusai_location":"Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Perth, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (1.0), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Future of Crown's License?","query":"Given the systemic AML and governance failures revealed, what is the probability of Crown Resorts retaining its operating licenses in Victoria and other Australian jurisdictions, and what specific remediation actions are regulators likely to mandate?"},{"label":"Impact on Junket Model?","query":"How will the ongoing scrutiny of Crown's historical junket operations, and its stated intention to cease international junket dealings, reshape the B2B high-roller acquisition model across the broader APAC iGaming market?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,28],"tags":[14657],"class_list":["post-18093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-casino-news","tag-crown-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18093","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18093"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18133,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18093\/revisions\/18133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}VCGLR licensing manager accuses Crown of delaying AML controls<\/h2>\n\n\n\n