Australia’s Star Entertainment fined US$183 mil for anti

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BENGALURU (Oct 28): An Australian federal court on Wednesday fined casino operator Star Entertainment A$260 million (US$182.73 million) for breaching anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws, according to a court judgement.

The penalty stems from a civil lawsuit brought in 2022 by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac), which alleged Star entities failed to comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulations.

The fine is lower than the roughly A$400 million penalty sought by the financial crime watchdog, according to media reports last year.

The court found that Star Sydney’s anti-money laundering programme failed to meet legal requirements and breached the law on multiple occasions each time it began providing designated services to customers between Nov 30, 2016, and Nov 30, 2022, among other violations.

Austrac CEO Brendan Thomas said the penalty reflects the seriousness of the contraventions and builds on previous state and Commonwealth fines to provide deterrence value.

“It (Star) allowed high-risk customers to gamble without properly establishing where their money came from and put profit over compliance on a large scale.”

Star shares were placed on a trading halt ahead of the court’s decision. The casino operator said this week that it had A$239 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of last month and A$80 million in restricted deposits.

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