{"id":7068,"date":"2020-06-04T22:52:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T22:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=7068"},"modified":"2026-04-24T04:40:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:40:50","slug":"marina-bay-sands-singapore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/marina-bay-sands-singapore","title":{"rendered":"Marina Bay Sands under US investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Singapore casino is being probed by the United States Department of Justice over whether anti-money laundering regulations were breached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Singapore.- Marina Bay Sands is being probed by the United States Department of Justice as to whether anti-money laundering regulations were breached through the way the casino handled top gamblers’ accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Justice Department issued a grand jury subpoena to a former compliance chief from Marina Bay Sands in January, seeking an interview and details of any abuse of internal financial controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors asked the former compliance chief to produce records related to any violations including through gambling junkets and third-party lending using casino credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US inquiry is also attempting to establish whether there was any retaliatory action taken against whistleblowers, Bloomberg has reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The subpoena also sought information on another former casino employee, who had reportedly carried out fund transfers to high rollers, Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an official statement, the Singapore casino said that all suggestions of inappropriate activity were taken seriously, and that it had investigated every accusation of wrongdoing that had been brought to its attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also faces a probe into its money transfer policies from the Casino Regulatory Authority in Singapore after claims of unapproved transfers were made in a lawsuit filed by a former client last year. Mr Wang Xi sued the casino in a bid to recover S$9.1 million (US$6.5 million) that he claimed was sent to other casino customers without his approval in 2015. Singapore police are also investigating the complaint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Singapore regulator reportedly asked Marina Bay Sands to review its third-party transfer processes. Such transfers are legal when authorised, and used by groups of gamblers to share winnings and losses at different foreign casinos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marina Bay\u2019s internal investigation reportedly found instances of employees violating transfer procedures by filling in payment details on pre-signed or photocopied authorisation forms. These practices appeared to have stopped in April 2018, when the casino amended its procedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Marina Bay Sands spokesman said: \u201cWhen allegations related to the mishandling of \u2018letters of authorisation\u2019 were made, the company thoroughly reviewed the matter. The review concluded that no patron funds were transferred in a manner that was contrary to a patron\u2019s intent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marina Bay Sands is one of the world’s most profitable casinos<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, accounting for more than a fifth of revenue and about a third of operating income at the US parent company, Las Vegas Sands Corp. The company’s Asian operations, which also include Macau, contributed about 85 per cent of the company\u2019s US$13.7 billion in revenue last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Singapore casino is being probed by the United States Department of Justice over whether anti-money laundering regulations were breached.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Marina Bay Sands, a key asset of Las Vegas Sands Corp., is under investigation by the US Department of Justice and Singapore's Casino Regulatory Authority for alleged breaches of anti-money laundering regulations and unapproved third-party fund transfers. The probes involve subpoenas for former employees and a lawsuit from a former client, highlighting significant governance and compliance challenges within the integrated resort's operations.","focusai_entities":"Marina Bay Sands, United States Department of Justice, Casino Regulatory Authority, Singapore police, Las Vegas Sands Corp., Mr Wang Xi, Bloomberg","focusai_location":"Singapore, United States, Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), tech_data (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (1.0), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"LVS Financial Exposure?","query":"What is the projected financial exposure for Las Vegas Sands Corp. stemming from potential fines, legal settlements, and remediation costs associated with these multi-jurisdictional AML and internal control investigations, and how might this affect its dividend policy or capital expenditure plans?"},{"label":"Governance Framework Efficacy?","query":"Beyond procedural amendments, what systemic enhancements to Marina Bay Sands' governance frameworks and B2C licensing compliance protocols are anticipated to address the identified vulnerabilities in high-roller account management and third-party transfers?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[439,16333],"tags":[29,168,169],"class_list":["post-7068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-casino","tag-marina-bay-sands","tag-singapore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7068","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=7068"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22017,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7068\/revisions\/22017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}