According to the New South Wales Crime Commission, the state’s gambling regulator, Liquor and Gaming NSW, failed to provide essential documents during the commission’s Project Islington investigation carried out in 2022 looking into money laundering through pokies machines.
The unreleased documents came to light following a parliamentary call for papers by independent MP Alex Greenwich. The parliamentary call was made following a tip that the regulator had withheld crucial files during the investigation. These files included profiles of individuals who were suspected of money laundering.
In response to the call, Liquor and Gaming NSW searched their records and discovered 8,497 relevant documents. These documents were then reviewed by the Crime Commission to ensure there was no breach of its confidentiality. According to commission staff, 125 documents had not been previously released and were relevant to the investigation.
However, Liquor and Gaming stated that 38 of these did not fit within the scope of the investigation’s request for documents. Crime Commissioner Michael Barnes needed to personally intervene to ensure Liquor and Gaming released all 125 documents.
Barnes wrote to the department’s legal director Andrew Saras, on Friday stating:
“With respect, I disagree. The 38 documents identified relate to profiles of persons of interest which I understand were authored in early 2022 (during the period of the inquiry) and were marked for dissemination to the Crime Commission. I consider that given these two facts, they do indeed relate to the Crime Commission’s inquiry, even if they were brought into existence as part of another investigatory project.”
The documents will be released to parliament on Friday allowing further investigations into people of interest. Despite the new evidence, the commission has maintained its position that criminals are more likely to use the proceeds of crime to play on pokie machines that to attempt to launder money.
The commission also states that both the government and the gambling industry need to make improvements in how data is collected and analyzed with Barnes stating:
“The introduction of mandatory cashless gaming is another way to achieve the data enhancements required to identify money laundering.”
MP Greenwich said:
“Following the crime commissioner’s review of these documents, it is clear there is a transaction data void when it comes to being able to investigate and mitigate the different types of money laundering that occur in clubs and pubs.
It should be a priority for the expert panel to make urgent recommendations on how to combat and investigate the proceeds of crime being put into the 90,000 poker machines across the state.”
NSW is moving ahead with a trial of cashless gaming despite a recent cyber attack which put the project in jeopardy. The 12 month trial period will see 500 pokie machines across the state move to cashless gaming only.
Ciaran has been working within the Gambling Industry as a deep analyst since 2019. His deep knowledge and understanding of all the gambling regulations, and processes makes him a true asset, and an always valuable point of view for Gambling Industry News, allowing us to cover every topics from a brand new perspective.