James Packer, Lawrence Ho called to appear at Crown inquiry

James Packer will be forced to appear as a star witness at an inquiry into the alleged ‘criminal infiltration’ of Crown Resorts.

Billionaire Lawrence Ho, chief executive officer and co-chairman of Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd., left, and billionaire James Packer.

Australia’s notoriously media shy billionaire, James Packer, will be forced to appear as a star witness at an unprecedented inquisition into the alleged “criminal infiltration” of Crown Resorts casino operations in Australia and abroad.

Macau gaming tycoon, Lawrence Ho will also be ordered to the witness stand, along with a roll call of Mr Packer’s most trusted insiders, including his formidable Crown Resorts chief, John Alexander.

The high stakes inquiry by former NSW Supreme Court judge Paddy Bergin – which has all the powers of a royal commission – was initially triggered by James Packer’s decision to sell 19.9 per cent of his Crown shares, potentially worth $1.75 billion, to Hong Kong billionaire Lawrence Ho’s Melco Resorts.

But outlining the breadth of the NSW independent Liquor and Gaming Authority’s inquiry on Tuesday, Commissioner Bergin gave a clear signal her investigators have been looking at every corner of Crown’s casino operations.

“It is appropriate to observe that the risk of the infiltration of organised crime in casinos is a matter of significant public concern and interest, but also of significant complexity requiring close co-operation between information gathering and regulatory and enforcement agencies and the casino operator,” Ms Bergin said.

Such is the scope of the inquiry it will be broken up into five separate hearings, starting with what Ms Bergin described as a “robust” investigation into allegations the Crown or its associates had been working with “VIP junket” operators to run money laundering operations inside Crown’s VIP high-roller rooms.

The first hearing – due to start on February 24 – will focus on the “vulnerabilities of casinos to money laundering”.

There will also be a separate hearing “to test the veracity” of media allegations by the Nine Network’s 60 minutes program, “Crown Unmasked”, and subsequent stories in Nine’s newspapers.

One of the inquiry’s two counsel assisting, Naomi Sharpe SC, said among the raft of allegations levelled at Crown was that it had “knowingly broken the law in China by “incentivising staff to lure Chinese high rollers to gamble at Crown’s Australian casinos”.

Ms Sharpe said despite the fact there were already two investigations underway into the arrest of 19 Crown staff in mainland China in October 2016 the inquiry would also be examining allegations that Crown Resorts had deliberately told its staff to conceal its activities, and lobby government officials to help” “bring criminals through Australia’s borders”.

The second and fourth hearings will be focused on the share deal between Mr Packer and Mr Ho which is currently stalled over concerns Melco Resort’s ties to Lawrence Ho’s 98-year-old father, Stanley Ho, could be in breach of the gambling group’s licence for the $2.4 billion high-roller casino at Sydney’s Barangaroo, due to open its doors in 2021.

The inquiry heard Stanley Ho dominated the Macau gambling scene for four decades but had consistently denied allegations he was connected to organised crime or the triads.

Ms Sharpe SC, told the hearing two previous investigations by the NSW independent Liquor and Gaming Authority in 2013 and 2014 had effectively cleared Lawrence Ho as an acceptable associate of Mr Packer’s Crown Casino group.

The inquiry is expected to trawl through the byzantine corporate entities of the extensive Ho dynasty, which includes Stanley Ho’s 19 children to four wives – a process Mr Ho has told colleagues he is confident will clear him, paving the way for his longer term ambitions to take on a controlling stake in Crown.

Mr Packer’s private company, Consolidated Press Holdings – currently holds the majority share in Crown Resorts. But it also faces scrutiny on why it failed to inform the Crown Resorts board of the share sale to Melco, despite the fact Stanley Ho was on the list of entities banned from any involvement with the Barangaroo casino licence.

CPH CEO, Guy Jalland, who has also been called as a witness, will no doubt be asked to explain why he didn’t think to mention it, especially as he is also a director on the Crown Resorts board.