Money laundering. ANZ and Crown covering for each other? What about AUSTRAC?

The previously unshared testimony of a former ANZ employee raises questions about how active banks and regulators are in cracking down on suspected money laundering. Zacharias Szumer reports.

Tim Bryer had been examining high-value transactions at ANZ for more than 15 years when he noticed something strange was happening on several Crown casino accounts.

Bryer remembers seeing Checks from Crown’s Perth and Melbourne accounts are rising to levels never seen before; In one case it goes up to 20 million dollars.

This was in 2017; It was nearly two years ago that the Nine-Fairfax newspaper lifted the lid on one of the most high-profile money laundering cases in Australian history..

After a series of media reports, three major government investigations and a Federal Court case, the Crown’s reputation has certainly taken a hit.

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But given the casino was one of ANZ’s biggest clients throughout this period, and what Bryer said he saw during his time working there, he was surprised the bank managed to come out of it all with a clean slate.

“It seems surprising that no penalty or reprimand has been issued to ANZ.

However, it is absurd not to even mention them.”

suspicious transactions

When Bryer’s suspicions were first raised by Crown transactions in 2017, he followed protocol and contacted the casino’s account controller, who said the checks were legitimate.

However, he was not very satisfied with their answer. As he wrote in a submission to the Crown to the Perth royal commission in 2021, in addition to the huge sums he had seen:

“Checks drawn on Chinese names and deposited into ANZ accounts that do not bear the payee’s name [and] “an unexplained increase in activity and I could not fully understand the purpose for which money was moving in and out of Crown accounts.”

Bryer, who had previously worked in various finance-related roles at the Department of Defense for seven years, decided to inform his superiors.

He prepared a suspicious transaction report for the bank’s internal investigation unit, which he described as “quite intense”.

The person submitting such a report is not allowed to discuss it with anyone (colleagues, managers, friends, family, etc.) or to obtain a copy of the report. He remembers that once it is sent, it should be immediately deleted from the person’s email.

The bank told employees who made such reports not to expect a response, so Bryer wasn’t surprised when he didn’t hear back.

Later that year, Bryer’s position was made redundant.

Just as much of the money was flowing out of Crown accounts, its work was also being sent to China.

‘A door to so much more’?

Two years later, Bryer began meeting with the media It said the Crown knowingly partnered with gambling festival operators who had links to organized crime groups involved in drug and human trafficking and who used the casino to launder the proceeds of these crimes.

As it turned out later, the total turnover of gambling shows involving customers identified as being at high risk of money laundering was $69 billion; this was more than the annual GDP of many small countries.

Given what Bryer saw in 2017,

He was surprised that ANZ was not mentioned in the reports.

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Likewise, when Royal commissions into the Crown were launched in Victoria and Western Australia respectively in February and March 2021, waiting for at least something to indicate authorities had received his complaint.

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The Victorian Royal Commission released its findings in October 2021, which largely supported what had already been reported in the media, but still included nothing about Bryer’s complaint.

He had considered resorting to this investigation, but backed down out of fear:

“Did I want to drop a bomb on my former employer? … Did I want my name and face to be associated with this?”

Having missed the deadline for the Victorian royal commission, he wrote to the Perth royal commission in November 2021, suggesting they request the report it produced in 2017 from ANZ.

He said he “strongly believes” in the commission.[d]Report “will be of great interest and assistance”

and will be “a door to so much more.”

Not sure if commissioners requested this. Suspicious transaction report from ANZ.

When the Perth royal commission delivered its report, the only reference to ANZ was similar to that found in the Victorian report; A section detailing how the bank met with the Crown and how two casino-linked accounts were closed in 2015 on suspicion of being used for money laundering purposes.

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Bryer says ANZ’s approach to the issue is “the exact opposite” of what employees like him are taught in the bank’s money laundering training.

“Is this how banks handle multibillion-dollar money laundering concerns? Tip the launderer?

After ANZ closed the accounts, Crown reopened them with other banks and the accounts continued to be used, showing clear signs of money laundering.

It was not disclosed whether ANZ reported the issue to Türkiye. of Australia anti-money laundering regulator AUSTRAC and

The bank did not respond to the questions put to it MWM.

In May 2023, AUSTRAC brought a claim against the Crown in the Federal Court, for which Bryer gave evidence.

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he said MWM He said that based on telephone conversations he had with AUSTRAC investigators at the time, the information he provided them contained details they did not previously know.

When he later saw AUSTRAC’s federal court application, he said there were many aspects of the allegations that were similar to the red flags he first saw in 2017.

• Use of checks as a laundering tool
• New Crown bank accounts opened for money laundering purposes
• Layering (using a complex network of transactions between multiple parties to hide a money trail).
• Third-party bank account activity
• Customers use their on-premises accounts as if the casino were a bank.

The case was resolved in mid-2023 and the Crown agreed to pay $450 million; This was “one of the largest penalties ever imposed on a casino worldwide”, AUSTRAC’s CEO said at the time.

Known unknowns

Bryer still doesn’t know what was in the report he submitted to ANZ’s internal investigation team. Both of them MWM – trust us though,

We asked both ANZ and AUSTRAC.

ANZ’s sole legal liability in such cases is to investigate suspicion of money laundering. AUSTRAC and, as far as we know, ANZ have conveyed Bryer’s concerns.

Beyond that, what’s inside AUSTRAC’s black box is anyone’s guess.

If the agency accepted Bryer’s suspicions, they may have told ANZ to keep the accounts open to monitor activity.

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If so, it took the agency more than five years to file a lawsuit against the Crown.

Assuming AUSTRAC received the report in 2017, that’s still three years before both royal commissions were established.

If AUSTRAC told ANZ to close the accounts this would certainly not be in any of the royal commission reports or in the AUSTRAC v Crown court documents Bryer and MWM has seen.

Neither AUSTRAC nor ANZ responded to a recorded request for comment.

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Zacharias Szumer is a freelance writer from Melbourne. In addition to West Media, Michael has also written for The Monthly, Overland, Jacobin, The Quietus, The South China Morning Post and other outlets.

He was also responsible for our Combat Power Reforms series.