Star’s former CEO tells court a junket operator arrested for laundering arrest was ‘acceptable’

Former Star Entertainment CEO Matt Bekier has told a court Macau-based junket operator Qin Sixin was a ‘suitable person’ despite his previous arrest for money laundering.

Former Star Entertainment CEO Matt Bekier outside the Federal Court in Sydney.

Former Star Entertainment chief executive Matt Bekier said Macau-based junket operator Qin Sixin was a “suitable person to do business with” despite the company having a report on his earlier arrest on money laundering charges.

Mr Bekier told the Federal Court, where along with eight other former executives and directors he is being sued by ASIC for breach of duties, that he was confident – based on Mr Qin’s activity and internal processes – he was a suitable person.

Mr Bekier denied a suggestion by ASIC lead counsel Dr Ruth Higgins that he had failed to consciously consider Mr Qin’s suitability as the board signed off on increasing his gaming credit limit by more than $20m.

“It’s not a question that I turned my mind to because I didn’t think I had to,” Mr Bekier said.

“I formed my own judgment on the basis of my understanding of the processes that we had established, and on that basis I was comfortable to proceed.”

The court heard that Star had a security report saying Mr Qin had been arrested by Chinese authorities in a Macau casino five years before Mr Bekier and the board approved topping up his credit facility in 2017.

Dr Higgins said the report included details of Mr Qin’s arrest and extradition to China in 2012 on suspected money laundering charges.

The court heard Mr Bekier took 21 minutes to approve the increase in credit for Mr Qin without obtaining information from management about his probity. The rest of the Star board also had signed off on the credit increase.

Mr Bekier said that he did not see the need to obtain any further information about the suitability of Mr Qin, who was a long-time player at the casino.

He said the decision was appropriate and he was confident the company had appropriate systems in place to check for probity of operators like Mr Qin.

“I assumed those checks were going along regularly,” Mr Bekier told the court.

Mr Bekier also said he was not aware of reports that it was not Mr Qin’s real name and that his source of wealth was “illegal money lending, casino chip stacking, loan sharking and operating illegal online gambling”.

Mr Bekier also told the court he was not aware of links between junket operator Suncity founder Alvin Chau and triad gangs and organised crime when the board approved increasing his credit facility by $30m.

Suncity operated a private gaming salon at Star Sydney.

“I didn’t feel we needed to ask questions about probity because if probity had been an issue, Suncity wouldn’t be operating in-house as these discussions (about increasing the credit limit) were happening,” Mr Bekier said.

He described an unsolicited offer from independent consulting FTI to look at the risk posed by Mr Chau and other junket operators as “marketing material”.

In 2023, Mr Chau was sentenced to 18 years in jail in Macau after being convicted of operating illegal gaming activities, and running a criminal organisation.

When asked by Justice Michael Lee whether the information in the FTI report was “pretty startling information” and that someone get to the bottom of it, Mr Bekier replied that he was of the “view that he had a department of people who did nothing but that”.

Originally published as Star’s former CEO tells court a junket operator arrested for laundering arrest was ‘acceptable’