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The head of Australia's Crown Resorts casino group has announced his resignation, following a scathing report into the company's operations. The company has been accused of facilitating money laundering and mafia ties.

Amid the fallout from a money laundering scandal, the CEO of Australia's Crown Resorts, Ken Barton, announced his resignation on Monday. Crown Resorts has been accused of facilitating illegal activities at its casinos in the cities of Melbourne and Perth.

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Text: More than $13 million worth of $20 bills flowed through the River Rock casino over a single month in 2015, according to a previously unreleased report on anti-money laundering.

Crown Resorts, Australia's biggest gaming and entertainment group, was rocked by a blistering report on the firm's operations last week. The inquiry, commissioned by the New South Wales Liquor and Gambling Authority watchdog, recommended that Crown Resorts be denied a license to run a glitzy casino tower on Sydney's waterfront.

Barton showed a 'breathtaking lack of care'

Patricia Bergin, a retired judge who spearheaded the report, derided the company in the inquiry, saying Crown Resorts has 'poor corporate governance, deficient risk management' and 'a poor corporate culture.' Bergin said a series of reforms would have to be taken by the company in order for it to operate its planned casino tower in Sydney.

Bergin accused Crown Resorts of doing business with figures linked to the mafia and organized crime. She also claimed Barton was unfit to serve as the company's CEO, saying he showed a 'breathtaking lack of care' when dealing with money laundering allegations at the company.

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Barton had worked at Crown Resorts for over a decade, and previously served as its chief financial officer. Crown, Australia's largest gambling and entertainment company, is majority-owned by Australian billionaire James Packer.

Crown taking steps to improve company, chairman says

Crown Chairman Helen Coonan has responded to the inquiry, saying the company is 'taking significant steps to improve our governance, compliance and culture.'

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) is the country's main financial intelligence agency that seeks to tackle illegal activities such as money laundering and organized crime. AUSTRAC has previously urged casinos in Australia to do more to fight money laundering and to report suspicious activity to the agency.

wd/dj (AFP, Reuters)

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Casinos and gambling have long had a link to money laundering and organised crime, and these associations with vice are largely responsible for a lingering bad reputation in many circles.

With gambling on the rise around the world, mainly due to the massive increase in online casinos, the authorities of most countries are increasing their efforts to curb illegal activity and keep everything above board.

So, what exactly is money laundering, and how does it apply to casinos? Here we take a look at how the two became closely linked, and at some high-profile cases over the years. We also look at what some prominent jurisdictions are doing to prevent money laundering in casinos both online and in physical establishments.

What is money laundering, and how does it apply to casinos?

Money laundering, as the name suggests, is the process of making ‘dirty’ money ‘clean’. In other words, money that is acquired through criminal activity is processed in a way that makes it look like it came from a lawful source. Common crimes associated with money laundering include tax evasion, embezzlement, theft, and narcotics trafficking. The proceeds from such crimes are often funnelled back into a criminal enterprise, or used to fund terrorist activities.

A common method used to launder money involves buying valuable assets such as real estate or precious gems and selling them on. Modern online financial services and cryptocurrencies have also given money launderers new avenues for their activities. Casinos also provide a way to clean money, for example by purchasing casino chips, playing only a little, and then claiming the chips back as winnings converted to a cheque or with a receipt. A similar method can be used at an online casino.

Notable cases of money laundering at casinos

One of the most shocking cases of casino money laundering was uncovered recently in Australia, implicating the country’s largest casino operator Crown Resorts in schemes allegedly going back to at least 2014. At the Perth location, a shell company owned by Crown received deposits all under the threshold of $10,000 – the amount at which transactions must be reported to the financial monitoring agency AUSTRAC. It is believed that hundreds of millions of dollars have been processed this way.

The scandal is likely to force a reckoning in Australia over financial crimes at the country’s largest gaming group. The CEO has been obliged to step down, and a newly-built resort in Sydney will remain unopened for the time being. The deeper issues exposed relate to the regulators, who have failed to address the illegal activities despite concerns being raised with the watchdog several years ago. Crown is owned by James Packer, who gained notoriety outside of his home country when he was briefly engaged to the American singer Mariah Carey.

The events in Australia appear to be linked to Chinese organised crime, with the Crown group pulling out of their Macau interests in 2017 after being investigated by the Beijing authorities. It was a similar story when rampant money laundering was uncovered in casinos in British Columbia, Canada, going back as far as 2009. The investigation is still ongoing, and it is expected to take a long time to unpack how and why the system failed.

In what became dubbed the ‘Vancouver Model’, the scheme was allowed to continue because of flawed oversight and alleged corruption. It is also asserted that the members of the organised crime groups had become so powerful in the area that it was too dangerous to investigate the money laundering effectively. The former minister for gaming in BC, Rich Coleman, stands accused of turning a blind eye to the activities, at best.

A conflict of interest?

Money laundering in casinos has been going on for many decades. The mobster Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo in Las Vegas in 1946, and the association between casinos and crime has continued to this day. One of the big issues in modern casinos, critics argue, is a fatal conflict of interest at the heart of the regulatory process.

In the cases in both Australia and Canada, the casinos in question are an enormous source of tax revenue for the government. Crown Resorts in addition made sizeable donations to political parties on both sides. The government regulatory bodies that oversee gambling activities therefore have a dual role – to try and ensure maximum profit but also to stamp out illegal activity.

These two roles can be perceived to be at odds with each other. In both Canada and Australia, it is alleged that the responsible agencies were warned multiple times about high levels of money laundering, and the officers who were responsible chose not to take action. In BC, the regulators raised the stake limit for high rollers from $5,000 to $100,000, arguing that it was in the public interest to maximise revenue.

What is being done to prevent money laundering?

The examples we have seen here both occurred as a result of existing anti-money laundering (AML) laws being circumvented. Without a robust system of

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