Police investigations at Star casino ‘not unusual’, court told

Former Star Entertainment executive Paula Martin has told the Federal Court that police investigations of cash transactions at its Sydney casino did not need to be reported to the board because they were ‘not unusual’.

Former Star Entertainment CEO Matt Bekier and former legal counsel Paula Martin.

Former Star Entertainment chief counsel Paula Martin says police investigations of cash transactions at the company’s Sydney casino were “not unusual” and so did not need to be discussed by the board.

Ms Martin told the Federal Court she did not consider a series of suspicious cash transactions occurring at Star Sydney’s Salon 95 in 2018 a “material matter” that needed to be included as an agenda item for the board.

That was despite NSW Police carrying out an operation at Salon 95, run by junket operator Suncity, which ultimately resulted in the exclusion of six people by the Police Commissioner.

“In my experience, a police investigation at the casino was not something that was unusual and it was something that was considered positive in the sense that action was being taken in relation to law enforcement to address that type of conduct at the start,” she said.

Ms Martin, former chief executive Matt Bekier and seven other former executives at Star are being prosecuted by corporate watchdog ASIC for alleged breaches of anti-money laundering provisions at the casino operator.

Ms Martin, who also served as company secretary, said she believed actions were being taken by Star to address issues at Salon 95, including the suspension of cash transactions until standard operating procedures could be introduced.

However, ASIC counsel James Arnott said the suspicious transactions only stopped when the NSW Police Commissioner excluded six people associated with Suncity from the casino.

“You did nothing to exclude these individuals from the casino, did you?” Mr Arnott asked Ms Martin.

Former Star Entertainment legal counsel Paula Martin leaving Federal Court in Sydney.

“The reason why (Star) investigators needed the police help is because they continued identifying these transactions to you and your team, but no one was taking the obvious step of preventing them from occurring by removing Suncity and its representatives from Salon 95.”

Ms Martin disagreed and said she had taken “steps to understand what other individuals were doing in the business around the risk of those people. I took steps to understand what was happening operating in the business at that time.”

She told the court the Star did not exclude the Suncity individuals itself because it was better handled by the police, which had broader powers.

“The police process is stronger in terms of the forms of exclusion that are issued,” she said. “By that, I mean they are forms of exclusion that can’t be challenged.”

She said with the benefit of hindsight the exclusions of the individuals from Salon 95 should have been reported to the board, “but only because I know the turn of events subsequently.”

Ms Martin she did not include a briefing about the transactions in Mr Bekier’s monthly board report in June 2018 because she did consider it necessary at the time. She did inform Mr Bekier of the transactions and the police investigations.

“I believe that at this time I would have considered the appropriate items to include for that month, and I’ve not included this item,” Ms Martin said.

Ms Martin told the court earlier that large amounts of cash leaving and arriving at the Salon 95 gaming salon in bags were “suspicious” but did not necessarily indicate money laundering. Suncity, at the time, was facing allegations of links to Asian crime gangs.

She said she could not recall whether the storage of cash in a closet at Salon 95 was a breach of standard operating procedures.

Mr Arnott asked Ms Martin whether she recalled Star senior investigator Andrew McGregor copying Ms Martin into an email in 2019 that reported the same suspicious practices were continuing at Salon 95.

“Mr McGregor says it appears that Suncity associates bring cash into Salon 95, concealing it in a few ways, and that this concealment has thwarted casino surveillance efforts to track its source and arrival time,” said Mr McGregor.

Ms Martin said she did not recall reading the email.

Originally published as Police investigations at Star casino ‘not unusual’, court told