Austrac simply following the money in Crown Resorts probe
The nation’s financial crimes watchdog has worked out where the money is. But AUSTRAC’s case against Crown Resorts is unlikely to generate CBA or Westpac type fines, write Terry McCrann.
Terry McCrann
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Depression-era serial bank-robber Willie Sutton was disarmingly honest: asked why he robbed banks, he replied “because that’s where the money is”.
Our anti-money laundering regulator Austrac has in recent years taken its cue from Sutton, after finally working out something similar.
That money laundering takes place, well, “where the money is”.
Over the last year or two it has targeted the big banks, scoring a $700m penalty payment from the CBA and a $1.3bn one from Westpac.
Well, that is to say, Westpac and Austrac have AGREED the $1.3bn but the Federal Court actually has to sign off on it: it could go higher and could even (if, unlikely) be cut.
Now it is targeting James Packer’s Crown casino group.
Interestingly, its biggest penalty before the mega bank ones was a $45m one from Tabcorp in 2015.
Big banks, casinos, wagering operations; hmm, I wonder what they have in common?
Just that they turn over billions of dollars of cash, not just every year but even weekly – with much of the money crossing our international borders.
Now we will have to see what the Crown investigation actually turns up – what we’ve seen to date has made for sensational, and sensationalised, TV and excruciating appearances before the NSW casino inquiry.
But that’s not quite the same thing as establishing serious breaches of the anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing rules.
That’s to say, that money WAS laundered; that money DID find its way to terrorists.
None of that was evident in the bank cases. Both Westpac and CBA made a mistake in their regular reporting to Austrac – and then repeated the mistake tens of thousands of times, making for expensive cost when multiplied.
In both cases there were very few really suspicious transactions – and that was not PER year but spread over the course of something like half-a-dozen years.
In Westpac’s case the most serious were clear evidence that it had – inadvertently; there was no evidence of deliberate bank involvement – facilitated payments relating to paedophilia in South-East Asia.
Unlike the Bond, Bourne and other movies – and the real-life reality of some major actual banks, especially in the shady area of private banking – our banks most decidedly did NOT embark on money-laundering as a new and deliberate profit-generating centre.
Quite the reverse, as it turns out, after the fines.
They just got sloppy and have paid a joint penalty of $2bn so far, with more to come from NAB when it settles its similar Westpac-like issues with Austrac.
Interestingly, the ANZ which built the biggest business in Asia of any of the big four banks, as a deliberate strategy to chase exactly the same customers that Crown was wooing to come south as high-rollers, does not seem to have fallen foul of either the Austrac rules or its own sloppiness. Maybe that’s why; that it was much more on guard.
If it turns out that Crown’s sins are more of the sloppiness variety I’d expect a penalty closer to the Tabcorp one; if they are more serious, it could be somewhere between Tabcorp and CBA.
But the biggest penalty would be if all this caused Crown to be ruled no longer a fit and proper (corporate) person to hold the casino licence.
And if so ruled in one state, the other two (of WA, NSW and Victoria) would quickly follow.
As I’ve explained, Packer has been on a pathway to quit his controlling stake in Crown for some years.
All this, and especially the growing possibility that he would personally be ordered to sell down his holding in Crown anyway, will accelerate the pressure to get it done and done quickly.
This is the worst possible time to be selling either a casino business all up, if Crown were to get pinged; or the controlling interest in it.
The Chinese high rollers might have been only a small part of the revenue flows through the Melbourne casino, but they were nevertheless a critical part.
But in any event $2bn-plus Barangaroo casino in Sydney is totally based on them.
It’s not allowed to take money from local punters – in or out of paper bags, the Sydney way.
There’s also a huge and continuing question mark over the local punters in Melbourne in this time of virus.
When will they be allowed to come back and will they ‘socially-distance’ the casino out of making money out of them?
ANDREWS PLAYS HIS USUAL GAME
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews doesn’t seem to understand his very own – and actually, very commendable — policy.
Even though his own chief health officer and health department do.
Unlike all the other states Victoria has an ‘Open Borders’ policy – anyone who is LEGITIMATELY anywhere else in Australia and not bound to quarantine there, can enter the state and, importantly, not have to quarantine in Victoria.
So the New Zealanders who flew into Sydney under the NSW-NZ ‘bubble’ were fully entitled to fly on to Melbourne and not have to quarantine or indeed tell anyone about their movement.
Once in Melbourne though, they ARE bound by exactly the same rules as the rest of Melburnians (and Victorians).
They could have a problem getting back to Sydney airport . They could have an even bigger problem when they get home, having to quarantine for 14 days as they ventured outside the ‘bubble’.
But that’s their problem, not Victoria’s. Andrews was grandstanding, as he always does, as his classic diversion tactic, just to shift ‘blame’ (for whatever?) to the Feds.
Originally published as Austrac simply following the money in Crown Resorts probe