{"id":213034,"date":"2022-05-11T11:32:11","date_gmt":"2022-05-11T18:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=213034"},"modified":"2022-05-11T15:39:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T22:39:57","slug":"star-entertainment-accused-of-misleading-investors-by-denying-expose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/star-entertainment-accused-of-misleading-investors-by-denying-expose\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Entertainment Accused of Misleading Investors by Denying Media Expos\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, an inquiry into Star Entertainment\u2019s suitability to hold a license in the Australian state of New South Wales questioned whether the company misled investors. That’s following media accusations of links to money laundering and organized crime.<\/p>\n

\"Star
Star Entertainment director Ben Heap has denied his company misled investors in a filing to the ASX that refuted bombshell allegations published in several Australian media outlets. (Image: AFR<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Star Entertainment director Ben Heap was grilled about a statement filed to the ASX last Oct. 11 in the wake of explosive revelations in The\u00a0Age<\/em>,\u00a0Sydney Morning Herald,<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0current affairs show 60 Minutes. <\/em><\/p>\n

In the filing, Star told shareholders it was \u201cconcerned by a number of assertions within the media reports that it considers misleading.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Investors did not appear to be reassured by the message. By the end of trading on October 11, Star\u2019s stock had crashed by almost 23%, wiping nearly $A1 billion ($740 million) off the company\u2019s market value.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sensationalism\u2019 Claim<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cAre you concerned, reading this [the ASX filing] now, that by focusing on the matters you consider to be misleading, as opposed to the matters you consider to be substantively accurate, the ASX announcement of 11 October was itself misleading?\u201d asked counsel assisting the inquiry Casper Conde, as reported by Business News Australia.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the point we were trying to achieve with this announcement was to make sure the market understood that we didn’t accept all of the findings,\u201d<\/strong> Heap replied.<\/p>\n

He added there was a \u201clevel of sensationalism\u201d in the reporting that \u201cdidn\u2019t reflect the way we saw it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The joint investigation by the three media organizations, all owned by Nine Media, alleged that \u201csuspected money laundering, organized crime, large-scale fraud, and foreign interference within its Australian casinos for years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The reports claimed the company wooed suspected criminals, foreign agents, and fraudsters to gamble at its casinos from at least 2014 to 2021.<\/p>\n

These included Chinese crime boss\u00a0Tom Zhou and property billionaire Huang Xiangmo, who was accused by the Australian government of being a \u201cforeign influence agent\u201d and banned from the country as a national security risk.<\/p>\n

Union Pay Racket<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The reports also asserted that CEO Matt Bekier ignored an internal report by third-party consultant KMPG that Star was not complying with anti-money laundering laws. Bekier resigned in March.<\/p>\n

\n

Additionally, they discovered that Star Sydney routinely allowed Chinese high rollers to use China UnionPay (CUP) credit cards to withdraw large sums of money for gambling. That’s while disguising the transactions as \u201chotel expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

CUP cards cannot be employed for gambling purposes as a condition of their use. The practice also violated Chinese government regulations designed to prevent capital flight.<\/p>\n

Heap had earlier told the inquiry the media allegations were \u201csubstantively accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, an inquiry into Star Entertainment\u2019s suitability to hold a license in the Australian state of New South Wales questioned whether the company misled investors. That’s following media accusations of links to money laundering and organized crime. Star Entertainment director Ben Heap was grilled about a statement filed to the ASX last Oct. 11 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":213035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStar Entertainment Accused of Misleading Investors by Denying Expos\u00e9<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Star Entertainment director Ben Heap denies misleading investors in ASX filing that criticized media allegations in October 2020.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/star-entertainment-accused-of-misleading-investors-by-denying-expose\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Star Entertainment Accused of Misleading Investors by Denying Expos\u00e9\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Star Entertainment director Ben Heap denies misleading investors in ASX filing that criticized media allegations in October 2020.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/star-entertainment-accused-of-misleading-investors-by-denying-expose\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-05-11T18:32:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-05-11T22:39:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/ben-heap.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"666\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/star-entertainment-accused-of-misleading-investors-by-denying-expose\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/star-entertainment-accused-of-misleading-investors-by-denying-expose\/\",\"name\":\"Star Entertainment Accused of Misleading Investors by Denying Expos\u00e9\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/star-entertainment-accused-of-misleading-investors-by-denying-expose\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/star-entertainment-accused-of-misleading-investors-by-denying-expose\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/ben-heap.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-05-11T18:32:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-05-11T22:39:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Star Entertainment director Ben Heap denies misleading investors in ASX filing that criticized media allegations in October 2020.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/star-entertainment-accused-of-misleading-investors-by-denying-expose\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/star-entertainment-accused-of-misleading-investors-by-denying-expose\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/star-entertainment-accused-of-misleading-investors-by-denying-expose\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/ben-heap.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/ben-heap.jpg\",\"width\":1000,\"height\":666,\"caption\":\"Star Entertainment director Ben Heap has denied his company misled investors in a filing to the ASX that refuted bombshell allegations published in several Australian media outlets. 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