Take Star Entertainment Group and its casino on the Sydney waterfront, The Star.
Swiss-born-and-raised chief executive Matt Bekier is a former McKinsey consultant with a PhD on the future of hedge funds.
Chairman John O'Neill is a former chief executive of Australian Rugby Union with a career in finance and banking before that. Other directors are similarly well-established, with extensive executive careers leading some of Australia's best-known businesses.
Yet activities going on behind closed doors at The Star are worthy of a mob film, if revelations from a government inquiry into whether or not Star Sydney should be allowed to retain its casino licence are true.
The inquiry heard about the close links between The Star and Suncity – a junket organiser which brought high rollers to the casino and with links to the Asian Triad criminal syndicate.
Star created private gambling salons for Suncity despite a string of incidents strongly suggesting it was laundering cash inside this "casino within a casino". CCTV footage captured numerous instances in 2018 and 2019 when large amounts of cash were bundled up in suitcases, cooler bags and backpacks being brought into the room, and of chips being exchanged for cash from a service desk.
When this room was exposed, chief executive Bekier told investors Star was ending its relationship with Suncity. Instead, he moved it deeper inside the casino, away from prying eyes, the inquiry heard last week.
It's not as if the allegations were new to Star.
In 2018, the casino received a damning report from KPMG consultants stating the Star did not have the "mature" anti-money-laundering checks needed for a risky business like a casino.
This should have been a red flag for management and directors.
Yet, instead, Bekier said the report was "wrong" and spent an entire meeting berating the authors about what he said were errors in the report.
The inquiry also heard that Star executives tried to hide the report from the financial crime watchdog Austrac by incorrectly claiming it was subject to legal privilege. It also asked KPMG to review its findings in light of Bekier's complaints.
KPMG did review its findings, and then informed The Star it stood by all aspects of its report.
And in 2019 the Star was also informed – by a staff member – that Australian law enforcement agencies believed Suncity was laundering $2 million every day in Australia.
We have also learned Star disguised as "hotel expenses" nearly $1 billion in transactions linked to Chinese high rollers, making the high rollers' money easier to launder.
The Star in Sydney isn't the only casino in Australia to have come under scrutiny and with money laundering going on under its nose.
Crown Entertainment's casinos in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth almost lost their licences after separate inquiries uncovered similar problems to those at The Star. Only last week, Crown Perth was found unfit to hold a casino license. It is still allowed to stay open, but under close monitoring from an independent governor.
None of this is to suggest any criminal intent by Star's board and management. However, it is undeniably a major failing in governance and oversight.
For this, the board and senior management must go.
Bekier's actions render him unfit to run the company.
For the directors, a lack of action was the problem.
Being a director of a large and high-profile company is a prestigious and well-paid job. Directors are feted; their opinions sought by journalists for the business pages, and the best tables in Sydney and Melbourne's top restaurants are saved for their lunch engagements.
But directorship comes with considerable responsibility. Regulators and courts have demonstrated it isn't enough for directors to claim they didn't know what was going on with a company's finances and its safety culture.
Nor can they claim to be oblivious to criminal activity, such as what occurred at Star Entertainment, when the extent to which so many people in the organisation turned a blind eye is evident.
So far there is no word about any of this from Star. The company continues to hide behind the veil of the current review.
"As the review is ongoing, The Star does not consider it appropriate at this stage to comment on matters which remain before the review and which will be considered in that process," was the board-authorised response to the revelations.
The board and management won't be able to hide forever. It's only a matter of time before they're ejected if they don't go voluntarily.
