spanning Australia, Hong Kong, mainland China and Macau - and drawing on dozens of sources including Crown insiders, government officials as well as court and business records - can now reveal the truth about Crown’s operations in China.The investigation shows Crown was prepared to get into bed with junket operators backed by Asian organised crime syndicates called “triads”, including the most powerful drug-trafficking syndicate in the world.
Through a lawyer, James Packer said he “adamantly” insisted that he had “no … knowledge” of the company’s conduct in China that led to the prosecution of the company’s employees. Her only contact was with her husband, US-born businessman Jeff Sikkema. It came via a message read out to her by her lawyer. “Honey, I love you,” it read.Crown’s Chinese misadventure begins more than a decade earlier with a journey that Packer took to Macau.
The strip’s back alleys are crammed with massage parlours and pawn shops displaying jewel-encrusted watches priced between $50,000 and $3 million. On the fringes of Macau’s gambling industry, a specialist group of fixers grew up. Called “junkets”, these syndicates did the difficult, sometimes-illegal work of organising gambling tours from the mainland to Macau. They could smuggle the money out or provide huge lines of credit on arrival.
Ho senior denies the claims. Nevertheless, US and Australian casinos are prohibited by their local regulators from dealing with him because of these alleged connections. Jiang, who is the first Crown employee arrested in 2016 to break their silence, says sales staff were told to divide the Chinese gamblers Crown wanted into four categories: minnows, catfish, guppies and whales. To reel them in, staff could offer luxury gifts, free gambling cash known as “lucky money” and free use of private jets and hotel suites.
There were other risks, too. Even a superficial analysis suggests many of the junkets Crown was partnering with had dubious associations, some of which could have been discovered via a simple Google search.
And we care why, all gambling is a scourge of most people it should be banned or may not public