Police are preparing to charge the 18 Crown Resorts employees arrested across China, including three Australians, with organising gambling activities for mainland nationals overseas, Fairfax Media has learned.
Sources familiar with the investigation told Fairfax Media the line of inquiry has focused on the sales and marketing activities of the 18 staff of James Packer's casino empire, and the inducement and facilitation for Chinese nationals to travel to Australia to gamble.
More Business Videos
- Video duration
- 01:55
The impact of China's raids on Crown Resorts
- Video duration
- 03:37
Planning for divorce
- Video duration
- 00:31
Australian Crown staff detained in China
- Video duration
- 05:34
Hadley and Jones weren't consulted: Singo
- Video duration
- 05:34
Hadley and Jones weren't consulted: Singo
- Video duration
- 02:38
Banks fires up about banks
- Video duration
- 03:04
Should Telstra share its regional mobile network?
The impact of China's raids on Crown Resorts
Elizabeth Knight comments on the potential impact to Australian businesses after a government crackdown on Crown Resort's offices in China.
"Under our country's laws, it is not just gambling and opening casinos in China which fall under gambling crimes," said one source, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of revealing aspects of an ongoing investigation. "If you organise or introduce our country's citizens to go overseas to gamble, if it's more than 10 people  then you will face criminal liability."
The revelations are damaging for Crown, and raise serious questions over the risks to which it has subjected its China-based staff by having them operate right on the fringes of what is legal in the country in order to lure lucrative high-rollers from mainland China.
Foreign casinos have often skirted the law by promoting the resorts and cities where their gaming venues are located. But police have seized the mobile phones and computers of all 18 staff, and it is unclear how well they would have covered their tracks while communicating with their customers, whether via email, text messages or group chats on social media application WeChat.
On any given week, Crown assists as many as 20 individuals with applying for Australian visas in Shanghai alone. The sources said it is more likely than not that Crown's China staff, who are aggressively incentivised through a commission-based system to land Chinese 'whales' at their casino's baccarat tables, would have openly discussed casino facilities and arranged seven-figure lines of credit for their customers. The seriousness of potential charges will vary according to the case of each employee, and was subject to further investigation, one of the sources said.Â
Lawyers for Crown Resorts were scheduled to hold their first meeting with the families of employees detained in mainland China on Monday afternoon, amid suggestions at least one employee, Shanghai-based administration assistant Jiang Ling, has been coerced into a sleep-deprived "confession" that she had accompanied Chinese nationals to Crown's casinos in Australia.
The employee's husband, American expatriate Jeff Sikkema, has been at pains to emphasise to Chinese authorities that the nature of her job was purely administrative and distinguishable from the marketing activities of others. She had never travelled to Australia, he said.
Most of the arrests have centred in Shanghai, including the most senior executive caught up in the arrests, head of International VIP Jason O'Connor. Also detained are Alfread Gomez, Carol Wu and "David" Dai Bin, among others scattered across Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Zhejiang. All were rounded up at their homes in late night police raids on Thursday.
James Packer was, until last week, one of Australia's loudest advocates for Australian political and business ties, having criticised previous governments for not doing enough to smooth Chinese relations and court Chinese business.
But on Monday, news of the crisis  resulting in Crown's share price plunging 14 per cent, slicing half a billion dollars from Packer's wealth and at the same time placing a question mark over billions of dollars of capital he has earmarked to expand his empire.
Speculation doing the rounds with industry insiders is that the crisis was triggered after Crown attempted to collect $15 million in gambling debts from one of its Chinese high-rollers in Melbourne.
It also comes amid broader of context of China's anti-corruption campaign and a desire to stem illicit capital outflows coursing through underground banks and casinos.
As the 72-hour deadline under the consular services charter neared, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said China had notified the Australian government of the detention of three Australian citizens in Shanghai.
"Consular officials in Shanghai are making arrangements to visit the Australians to offer appropriate assistance, all of who have legal representation provided by their employer," she said in a statement on Monday.
At a regular press briefing in Beijing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Australian citizens were detained by Shanghai police, without specifying the number. She said the case remained under investigation.Â
0 comments
New User? Sign up