A greyhound track in Melbourne was raided by police for allegedly laundering AU$4.7m through pokie machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Australia.- The Australian Federal Police<\/strong> (AFP) claim to have dismantled a money laundering operation that used slot machines. Three people are being investigated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to news.com.au, money was laundered through the cash purchase of winning jackpots from patrons at Greyhounds Entertainment in Springvale. The buyers then deposited the winning cheques into a bank and attributed them as legitimate gambling winnings to conceal their origins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The investigation, conducted in conjunction with AUSTRAC<\/a>, the Victorian Gambling & Casino Control Commission<\/a> and NAB, detected an abnormally high number of cheques between November 2021 and June 2022 when compared to other gaming venues. About 73 per cent of them, worth more than AU$4.7m,<\/strong> were sent to a group of customers suspected of being linked to money laundering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The suspected leader of the group, a 49-year-old woman from Springvale South, was arrested on Tuesday. The suspected “key brokers”, a 63-year-old man and 61-year-old woman from Noble Park, have also been arrested. The trio will appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday (September 8). The maximum penalty for money laundering is 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Raegan Stewart<\/strong>, AFP acting assistant commissioner, said: “Licensed clubs and gaming venues should already be on notice that they are a significant risk for money laundering activities, and are often misused by individuals for criminal intent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPolice target those seeking to profit from selling drugs or stealing from law-abiding citizens, but venues are reminded they cannot turn a blind eye to criminal activity \u2013 the risk and consequences for our communities are too high.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stewart did not rule out making any additional arrests among those who allegedly sold their winning jackpots. Annette Kimmitt<\/strong>, VGCCC chief executive, added that over the last 18 months, Greyhounds Entertainment accounted for 13 per cent of cheques issued by licensed venues in the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She said: “There\u2018s nothing to indicate that the shareholders of this venue are involved at this stage. But investigations are ongoing into the venue itself and its staff.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A greyhound track in Melbourne was raided by police for allegedly laundering AU$4.7m through pokie machines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":21187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Australian authorities have dismantled a AU$4.7m money laundering operation at Greyhounds Entertainment in Melbourne, involving the illicit purchase and legitimization of pokie machine jackpots. Three individuals have been arrested, with investigations ongoing into the venue's potential complicity and broader industry compliance failures. This incident highlights critical vulnerabilities in gaming venue governance frameworks and anti-money laundering (AML) protocols.","focusai_entities":"Australian Federal Police, AUSTRAC, Victorian Gambling & Casino Control Commission, NAB, Greyhounds Entertainment, Raegan Stewart, Annette Kimmitt","focusai_location":"Australia, Melbourne, Springvale, Springvale South, Noble Park","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.9), investor_analyst (0.8), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Venue Accountability","query":"What specific governance failures or internal control deficiencies at Greyhounds Entertainment facilitated the AU$4.7m money laundering scheme, and what are the potential regulatory penalties for the venue itself?"},{"label":"AML Framework Efficacy","query":"How will this incident influence AUSTRAC and VGCCC's assessment of current AML compliance frameworks within Australia's land-based gaming sector, and what enhanced due diligence measures might be mandated for licensed venues?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,439],"tags":[229,23911],"class_list":["post-33304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-legal-news","tag-gambling","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33304","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=33304"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33311,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33304\/revisions\/33311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}