Star casino linked to organised crime, money laundering, foreign influence

Star Entertainment has been enabling suspected money laundering, organised crime, large-scale fraud and foreign interference within its Australian casinos for years. The Star Entertainment Group runs casinos in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast. It cultivated high-roller gamblers who are allegedly associated with criminal or foreign-influence operations. They were wooed by Star with luxury goods, free hotel rooms and other incentives. The firm’s failings are exposed in internal company documents, court cases and law-enforcement intelligence briefings.

Star Entertainment ignored the warnings of KPMG about its anti-money laundering and terrorism financing. The company's dealings with suspected criminals, foreign agents and fraudsters occurred over many years and in some cases as recently as 2020 and 2021. Chinese high-rollers used special Chinese debit and credit cards to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars from Star’s hotel properties. The practice was exposed at the Victorian royal commission into Crown. It was also used by Crown to evade China”s strict national laws against taking money out of the country for gambling.

Senior management pushed back when they pointed out the criminal connections of one man.

Mr Mussillon was charged by AFP in August and accused of money-laundering activity dating to 2016. Crown Resorts was excoriated in the media in 2019 for dealing with the Macau company. In 2020, Star’s managers were busy cutting deals with another company accused with links to organised crime. In March, a high-roller, Guoyi Su, alleged Star encouraged him to deposit millions of dollars into an account operated by Suncity and he could gamble at The Star Sydney. The casino confirmed in court papers that its casino was dealing in January 2020 with a Sun City representative.

Star casino has links to organised crime, money laundering and foreign influence. It is also linked to billionaire property developer Huang Xiangmo. ASIO met with state police to gather intelligence on the possible use of Star by suspected foreign interference agents. The sources confirmed that at least six high-rollers or junket tour operators linked Star and the Chinese government’s overseas influence operations. Austrac has also identified a small number of links between junkets and possible foreign interfered activities. The report was released publicly in December 2020. A report by Austrails identified Mr Pan as a junkett tour representative at Star.

Star casino linked to organised crime, money laundering and foreign influence. Tomorrow, more on Star's dirty secrets.