Crown Resorts director says junket operators suspended while possible criminal links reviewed

A New South Wales inquiry into Crown Resorts and its casino licence has heard that Crown has suspended dealings with the 100-odd junket operators who bring high rollers from Asia and is conducting reviews of possible criminal links.

Director Guy Jalland agreed that the pause had been mainly prompted by Covid-19 and travel restrictions and that Crown had not notified the junket partners they were suspended and under review.

“Doesn’t that make the suspensions rather hollow?” the counsel assisting, Naomi Sharp SC, asked on Wednesday. In response, Jalland insisted that the suspensions were real and that reviews were now under way.

The inquiry by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority, which is being chaired by Particia Bergin SC, a former NSW supreme court judge, is considering whether Crown remains suitable to hold the Sydney casino licence at Barangaroo.

Related: James Packer deputy faces questions over possible licence breach in Crown sale

It is investigating allegations made by the Nine Network last year that Crown turned a blind eye to money laundering at its Melbourne and Perth casinos and that it did not investigate the criminal links of its junket operators, which often share in the profits of gaming in private rooms they operate within casinos.

Four Crown directors, who are also directors of billionaire James Packer’s private company Consolidated Press Holdings, are giving evidence ahead of an appearance by Packer, Crown’s largest shareholder, next week.

Packer is currently scheduled to give evidence via satellite link from his superyacht IJE in the South Pacific on Tuesday afternoon when many Australian journalists will be in the lockup for the federal budget. But it is possible this timetable could be pushed out and Packer will be called later next week.

Jalland, one of Packer’s key lieutenants for more than two decades, faced questions about the allegations made by the Nine media in 2019 and about the role he had played in the now failed deal to sell 19.9% of Crown to Lawrence Ho’s Melco Crown last year.

Jalland told the inquiry on Wednesday he did not know about large cash transactions passing through a cash desk in a high roller room within the Melbourne Crown casino run by the junket Suncity until it was raised in the inquiry.

He denied that Crown was under-resourced to deal with the threat of money laundering within its casinos, or that it lacked a culture of compliance.

“I don’t believe it [the compliance unit] was under-resourced. It’s not something I felt was the case,” he said.

Bergin pointed Jalland to evidence given by the former and current chief compliance officers. Debra Tegoni, a lawyer from Crown Melbourne, told the inquiry she was not aware she was the chief compliance officer.

After Tegoni left Crown, Joshua Preston, the general counsel at the Perth casino, was appointed chief compliance officer in Melbourne on top of holding that role in Perth.

Bergin said Preston had told the inquiry he was wearing “eight hats” at once – “all very important hats” – and she asked whether this was indicative of under-resourcing of the compliance function. Jalland disagreed.

He also rejected that Crown was “not proactive” on money laundering, or that it put emphasis on reporting suspicious transactions rather than preventing money laundering, even though Crown’s chief executive, Ken Barton, had agreed this was so.

Bergin expressed concern about why the Crown board had not moved more swiftly after presentations from Barton in recent months on the issues with Crown’s anti-money laundering systems and culture.

“It’s terrifying in terms of directors’ obligations,” she said. “You need to be sure the AMLCTF [anti-money laundering and counterterrorism] rules are effectively protecting the company and the community.”

Jalland also faced more questions about what he knew about Melco Resorts and Melco International.

The sale of the shares has raised another issue because the Sydney casino licence contains a specific clause banning Stanley Ho and a list of his companies from being an associate due to concerns about his alleged links with organised crime.

Despite being sent a draft stock exchange release for approval that Melco International planned to release about the deal to buy 19.9% of Crown, Jalland said he was not aware of Stanley Ho’s links to Melco International.

The release disclosed that the largest shareholder in Melco International, with 26.5% of the stock, was Great Respect – a company that controlled a trust for Lawrence Ho and his family members.

Jalland said he had spent the past decade believing Melco was Lawrence Ho’s company. It had not occurred to him to investigate whether Stanley, the father, was involved.

Stanley Ho, who died recently, was a beneficiary of Great Respect and that company is specifically banned from being involved in the Sydney casino licence.