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Saipan – Imperial Pacific denies money laundering investigation

By - 18 November 2016

Imperial Pacific’s gaming vehicle Best Sunshine International, operator of a casino in the pacific island of Saipan, has seen its share price fall to an 18 month low, following reports it is being investigated by the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Imperial Pacific was keen to highlight that Best Sunshine hadn’t received any official warning that it is being investigated by the anti-money laundering division, known as Fincen, but said it had responded to ‘certain media articles.’

The share price fell by seven per cent following reports that Fincen was looking for suspicious financial flows, giving the company a value of US$2.2bn.

In a filing Imperial Pacific said: “The group has never received any investigation notice from the U. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Having made all reasonable inquiries, the board of directors hereby clarifies that the allegations are false. The board is seeking legal advice and reserves the right to pursue legal actions against unfounded report. The group has implemented stringent internal control measures and has fully applied an anti-money laundering system to ensure compliance with all applicable US laws and regulations.

Imperial added: “According to the group’s internal log data, since 2016, the visitor headcounts at 10pm of Best Sunshine casino have never been below 300. As there are only 38 gaming tables in the casino and each table is able to serve five to six customers at the same time, our service capacity has saturated. Each night, around 100 customers could not be arranged with a seat and had to queue or stand to participate.”

The investigation follows superb results recorded in the first half of the year when the casino reported daily revenue of $170,000 for 16 VIP tables, meaning they earned almost eight times the average of VIP tables in Macau’s leading casinos. This culminated in a record month in September with Imperial reporting GGR of $3.9m.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Brown this month accused Macau’s casinos of under-reporting its GGR as off-books betting not was not being recorded.

Saipan is the westernmost territory of the United States, capital of the Northern Mariana Commonwealth, and the closest US outpost to Japan, China, Korea, and Southeast Asia.

Three years ago Imperial secured a license from the Saipan government to build and operate a multi-billion dollar integrated resort and gaming center on the island.

In August 2014, Imperial Pacific was given a 25-year license to operate a casino on Saipan with an option to extend the license for another 15 years. Best Sunshine will spend US$7.1bn on a resort with 4,200 hotel rooms and 1,600 gaming tables.

The permanent resort will be called Grand Mariana Casino Hotel and Resort is being constructed in Garapan. Whilst this is being built it opened a temporary casino Best Sunshine Live.

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