Faced with evidence of money laundering at Marina Bay Sands, CEO Sheldon Adelson is being proactive and hiring a local firm to investigate $1 billion in fund transfers from high rollers to third parties. It’s frankly in Adelson’s interest to do so, as he got zapped with a combined $11 million in state and federal fines for AML violations at The Venetian, back in mid-2016. True, that was during the Obama administration and Sheldon now has friends in high places who can quash investigations—but the Singapore government might be quite a different animal and their cops are already on the case. Las Vegas Sands was already being sued by a Marina Bay Sands customer who says that almost $7 million of his money “was transferred to other gamblers without his knowledge.” Sands reimbursed him and everybody agreed not to say anything more. As for the other transfers, Sands says they were conducted in accordance with clients’ intent.
Sands has been cleared by Singaporean authorities in one AML case, although “there were weaknesses in MBS’ casino control measures pertaining to fund transfers.” You’d think Sands would have learned after the 1986 imbroglio. The new affair will surely spark scrutiny of junket operators, the primary beneficiaries of the controversial transfers. Sands’ own investigators have caught junketeers with their hands in the cookie jar before. Adds Bloomberg, “The client lawsuit sparked scrutiny by a slew of authorities into how Marina Bay Sands handled and monitored third-party transfers. The transactions, when authorized, are legal and used by groups of wealthy gamblers in Asia to pool winnings and losses at different casinos.”
Card rooms in California are non-smoking, its Native American casinos that allow smoking, but not now during the pandemic I have heard… It will be interesting to see if they allow smoking when the nightmare is finally over…