The UK Gambling Commission has levied a £1.8 million (US$2.248 million) fine and license warning to London casino operator Silverbond Enterprises Ltd. because of social responsibility failures and money laundering violations, according to SBC News.
Silverbond operates the Park Lane Club casino in Mayfair, a property the commission placed under review in early 2016. During an inspection last year, investigators found that the casino failed to undertake enhanced due diligence checks on its top 250 customers, breaching licensing provisions. Instead, the company relied on insufficient open source third party systems to verify patrons.
“Analysis of customer accounts held by the casino established a number of undated entries made by the Money Laundering Reporting Officer on customer profiles requesting additional EDD, Source of Funds or Source of Wealth checks to be conducted. Retaining accurate records is a requirement of the ML regulations,” the commission wrote.
Silverbond is also charged with failure to identify problem gambling behaviors, which included a customer ‘threatening staff and damaging property’ and customers requesting to increase maximum funds allowed by check cashing facilities. Park Lane Club also failed to document incidents or try to establish whether customers were suffering or vulnerable to gambling-related harms.
Concluding its investigation, the UKGC has sanctioned formal warnings on two Silverbond senior management officers for failing to meet standards set by UK gambling’s Personal Management License conditions.
The Park Lane Club casino got national headlines last year, following a Ukrainian corruption probe, which saw the accounts and holdings of Silverbond owner Vassilijs Melniks withheld by Ukrainian authorities. Latvian businessman Melniks faced accusations of embezzling and laundering €55 million, in connection with the management of Ukrainian state-owned energy supplier Naftogaz.
