The monetary watchdog is taking Star Entertainment to Federal Court, launching civil penalty proceedings towards the embattled on line casino operator for alleged systemic non-compliance with Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing legal guidelines.

AUSTRAC launched an industry-wide compliance marketing campaign in 2019 and opened an enforcement investigation into The Star in June 2021, following an investigation by this masthead that uncovered  extensive criminal activity. 

Two impartial inquiries in NSW and QLD discovered The Star unfit to carry its on line casino licences earlier this yr in addition to figuring out the group had a deep-rooted cultural drawback that developed attributable to poor governance.

AUSTRAC stated it had labored carefully with the state and federal regulatory our bodies to begin its civil penalty proceedings.

The watchdog’s chief govt Nicole Rose stated their investigation had recognized various points together with poor governance, failures to handle monetary threat, in addition to poor anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing compliance.

“Criminals will always seek to exploit the financial system to launder their money and harm the community. Businesses, as the front line of defence of our financial system and our communities, are often the first to be alerted to criminal activity,” Rose stated.

AUSTRAC added The Star’s casinos had been “vulnerable to criminal exploitation” and the group’s failure to handle the dangers had uncovered Australia and the worldwide monetary system to the potential of systemic cash laundering and terrorism over a few years.

The watchdog has alleged in depth mismanagement happened at The Star’s entities together with failing to determine an acceptable board framework, failing to conduct due diligence on a spread of high-risk prospects, and failing to determine a becoming transaction monitoring program to observe transactions and determine suspicious exercise.