Chinese high rollers<\/a><\/em><\/strong> to enter the country and visit casinos, including some who had spent time in prison or had been linked to organised crime and money-laundering operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCrown was subject to a scandal in China in 2016 when 19 employees were arrested. Some served two-year prison sentences after being found guilty of promoting gambling in areas of the country, where gambling is considered an illegal activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the public hearing on Friday. Craigie, who left Crown in 2017, denied the company had a “cosy” relationship with consulate officials in China and said its employees in the country used a three-level scheme to vouch for the Chinese visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When they were not able to support a visa application, they would fill in the form saying to \u201cproceed as normal\u201d, leaving it in the consulate\u2019s hands to grant the visa or not through the proper channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Craigie told the authorities he was not aware that Crown’s VIP team had opened an office near the Australian consulate in Guangzhou and set up a separate visa processing business registered in an employee’s name. He said senior level executives had not receive this information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NSW ILGA is currently deciding whether to let Crown keep its casino licence for its new Barangaroo property. The public hearings will continue on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The public hearings over Crown\u2019s China debacle have begun with authorities to decide if the company will keep its licence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The New South Wales Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA) has commenced public hearings to determine if Crown Resorts will retain its casino license for the Barangaroo property. This follows an investigation into the 2016 arrest of 19 Crown employees in China and allegations of the company facilitating visas for Chinese high rollers, some with links to organised crime, while promoting gambling in an illegal jurisdiction. Former CEO Rowen Craigie testified, denying knowledge of certain illicit visa processing activities.","focusai_entities":"Crown Resorts, Rowen Craigie, New South Wales Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA), Sydney Morning Herald","focusai_location":"Australia, China, New South Wales, Guangzhou, Barangaroo","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.8), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"ILGA Decision Impact","query":"What are the projected financial and operational implications for Crown Resorts should the NSW ILGA revoke or impose stringent conditions on its Barangaroo casino license?"},{"label":"Governance Frameworks Review","query":"How will this regulatory scrutiny of Crown's past conduct influence the development and enforcement of corporate governance frameworks and responsible gambling protocols across the broader iGaming industry?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,439],"tags":[289,227,14657],"class_list":["post-9261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-legal-news","tag-australia","tag-china","tag-crown-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9261","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=9261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9264,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9261\/revisions\/9264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}