This happened in Australia.(1)
The
32-year-old perpetrator of the above frauds i.e. obtaining financial advantage
by deception, pleaded guilty, but left a courtroom cramped with distraught
devastated financially ruined family, friends and others from whom he had
conned hundreds of thousands to be ostensibly, invested in false front (Ponzi)
financial scheme.
The
availability of gambling apps on his phone provided easy access to cassinos
which in turn regularly sent the gambler incentives to gamble e.g. free tickets
to a soiree and or client manager, to encourage betting.
One victim (a
relative) asked why the banks had not intervened when $20,000 per day was being
transferred to accounts, they would have or could easily have identified as
gambling facilities.
Which
brings me to the point of this epistle:
Banks have a duty of care to “Know you Client/Customer” and other
international anti-money laundering protocols.
Following
publication in Breakingviews of Finding Fraudsters in Crypto
Currencies, (2) in
which victims, perpetrators and facilitators, were defined, Banks seemed
to emerge from their stables, racing to “shut the gates after the horses had
bolted” – so to speak, flooding clients with warnings about scammers.
I am cognisant
of a case currently being constructed to file a class action against a bank, as
a facilitator of a crypto fraud. The
delay is due to the fact that, Justice is Money: Just Money.
Whether or
not the Australian victims of the above-mentioned fraud, decide to file a class
action against a bank, is yet to be seen.
Online
gambling addictions are as they are. Easily accessible via apps these
perpetrators hound their victims continuously. No laws to stop it as they’re
international agencies.
Never goes
away.
Addendum.
As a cop, in
a previous career, I had seen the damage gambling caused in families, when
overseeing domestic disputes which produced serious outcomes for families.
During my
last term in parliament as an MP, I voted against legislation providing the
legal pillars upon which Sky Cassino in Auckland, was founded.
I
specifically recall a senior member of the National party, trying to encourage
me to vote for the legislation, but at that stage of my career, I was Leader of
the first minor political party to have been formed under the pending MMP regime
– a brainchild of Rt Hon Jim Bolger, and accordingly, I did not buckle
to the pressure.
Ross Meurant BA
MPP. Company Director. Founder of www.gena.co.nz Former
Police Inspector, Member of Parliament & Honorary Consul.
(1) https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/blown-our-family-apart-financial-planner-gambled-away-4-5m-in-52-betting-accounts-20250319-p5lkvl.html
(2) https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2024/11/ross-meurant-finding-fraudsters-in.html
2 comments:
I write as someone who has suffered because of another person's gambling addiction: Hogwash!
A bank is an business that takes the money you voluntarily loan it, uses that money to make more money and gives you a (usually an agreed) portion of the profit.
As part of that business the bank loans money for a fee.
ALL responsibility for that money outside of the bank's business is the responsibility of the owner of said money.
Attempting to steal from bank shareholders to re-finance fools may be legal but it is still very wrong.
I make no comment about legal gambling operations.
KYC sems to hold a different view - and that is part of international financial protocols re money laundering as the blogs states.
$20k a day should definitely have caught the algorithm
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