{"id":117575,"date":"2019-10-17T16:12:04","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T23:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=117575"},"modified":"2019-10-17T17:20:45","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T00:20:45","slug":"crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Crown Resorts Allowed UN-Sanctioned Arms Trader Linked to Convicted War Criminal to Gamble Away $6 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another day, another PR disaster for embattled Australian casino giant Crown Resorts. This one comes in the form of an alleged arms dealer who was placed on a United Nations sanctions list for aiding and abetting former Liberian president Charles Taylor. In May 2012, Taylor was imprisoned for 50 years by an international criminal court for crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

\"Charles
Charles Taylor, the brutal Liberian warlord and later president of the country, was paid in weapons by Joseph Wong Kiia Tai, who gambled away more than $6 million of his ill-gotten gains at Crown casinos. (AFP\/Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Australia\u2019s ABC News reported that the Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth permitted Indonesian businessman Joseph Wong Kiia Tai to gamble at its high-roller rooms, despite the international sanctions that had been imposed on him, which included a travel ban<\/p>\n

According to documents seen by ABC, Kiia Tai lost over $6 million during gambling sessions at Crown\u2019s casinos. ABC did not say precisely when these visits occurred, other than they were within the UN sanction period, which was between 2004 and 2015.<\/p>\n

According to the UN, Kiia Tai \u201cprovided military and financial support\u201d for Taylor\u2019s regime, which was engaged in a vicious civil war that left 150,000 dead.<\/p>\n

Decimating Rainforests, Paying in Guns<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In order to fund the war, Taylor was stripping the country\u2019s rainforests bare. Kiia Tai, as head of the Oriental Timber Company, was granted logging rights to a quarter of Liberia\u2019s rainforests, which equated to one sixth of all of Africa\u2019s remaining rainforests.<\/p>\n

He reputedly bought arms for Taylor rather than pay taxes on the timber, in violation of a UN arms embargo.<\/p>\n

\n

At the time, Taylor was intervening in a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, for which he was later also convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Kiia Tai was accused by the UN of supporting the Taylor regime “in an effort to destabilize Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The report of Kiia Tai\u2019s visits to Crown properties comes just days after video footage was leaked by disgruntled Australian gaming regulators. They showed bricks of cash amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars being offloaded from a large grocery bag into the cash cage at a VIP room at the Crown Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Government \u2018Aware\u2019 of Kiia Tai Visits <\/strong><\/h2>\n

The revelations will raise further questions about how Crown Resorts is vetting its VIP customers and whether it is adhering to anti-money laundering procedures.<\/p>\n

A documentary aired by Australia\u2019s Channel Nine last accused the operator of exploiting loopholes in the visa system to fast-track VIPs into Australia without appropriate checks and balances.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s Department of Home Affairs confirmed to ABC that it was \u201caware\u201d of Kiia Tai\u2019s visits to the Crown, and that it \u201cthoroughly investigates instances of misuse of the visa system and takes action to mitigate against further occurrences, where appropriate.”<\/p>\n

A Crown Resorts spokesman said it had “no interest in being used by criminal elements.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another day, another PR disaster for embattled Australian casino giant Crown Resorts. This one comes in the form of an alleged arms dealer who was placed on a United Nations sanctions list for aiding and abetting former Liberian president Charles Taylor. In May 2012, Taylor was imprisoned for 50 years by an international criminal court […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":117577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCrown Resorts Allowed Arms Trader to Gamble Away $6 Million<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Crown Resorts criticized for welcoming Joseph Wong Kiia Tai, who stripped African rainforests bare and sold weapons to war criminal Charles Taylor.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crown Resorts Allowed Arms Trader to Gamble Away $6 Million\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Crown Resorts criticized for welcoming Joseph Wong Kiia Tai, who stripped African rainforests bare and sold weapons to war criminal Charles Taylor.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-10-17T23:12:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-10-18T00:20:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/charles.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2048\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1536\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/\",\"name\":\"Crown Resorts Allowed Arms Trader to Gamble Away $6 Million\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/charles.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-10-17T23:12:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-10-18T00:20:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Crown Resorts criticized for welcoming Joseph Wong Kiia Tai, who stripped African rainforests bare and sold weapons to war criminal Charles Taylor.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/charles.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/charles.jpg\",\"width\":2048,\"height\":1536,\"caption\":\"Charles Taylor, the brutal Liberian warlord and later president of the country, was paid in weapons by Joseph Wong Kiia Tai, who gambled away more than $6 million of his ill-gotten gains at Crown casinos. (AFP\/Getty)\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"News\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Crown Resorts Allowed UN-Sanctioned Arms Trader Linked to Convicted War Criminal to Gamble Away $6 Million\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/\",\"name\":\"Casino.org\",\"description\":\"Latest Casino and Gaming News\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\",\"name\":\"Philip Conneller\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png\",\"caption\":\"Philip Conneller\"},\"description\":\"In Philip Conneller\u2019s eight years with Casino.org, he has covered the gaming industry from Las Vegas to Macau and everything in between. He currently focuses his coverage on gaming law, white-collar crime, global money laundering, tribal gaming, politics, and regulation. Philip was the original features editor for poker\u2019s Bluff Magazine and editor for Bluff Europe, which he helped launch. His writing has also been featured in ESPN, Forbes, Time Out, The Sun, and The Daily Star, as well as iGaming Business, eGaming Review, and numerous other industry news and tech websites. His news stories for Casino.org\/news have been linked by The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, People Magazine, and Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, among many others. Philip once won $20,000 with 7-2 off-suit. He has been reprimanded for unwittingly playing Elton John\u2019s piano on two separate occasions on both sides of the Atlantic. He became a writer because he is a lousy pianist. Philip lives outside London with his wife and children, where he spends his time agonizing about Arsenal FC. Contact Philip at philip.conneller@casino.org.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/muckrack.com\/philip-conneller\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/philip-conneller-1495a48\/?originalSubdomain=uk\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/casinoorgphilc\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/phillip-conneller\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Crown Resorts Allowed Arms Trader to Gamble Away $6 Million","description":"Crown Resorts criticized for welcoming Joseph Wong Kiia Tai, who stripped African rainforests bare and sold weapons to war criminal Charles Taylor.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Crown Resorts Allowed Arms Trader to Gamble Away $6 Million","og_description":"Crown Resorts criticized for welcoming Joseph Wong Kiia Tai, who stripped African rainforests bare and sold weapons to war criminal Charles Taylor.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/","og_site_name":"Casino.org","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews","article_published_time":"2019-10-17T23:12:04+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-10-18T00:20:45+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2048,"height":1536,"url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/charles.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Philip Conneller","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@casinoorgphilc","twitter_site":"@Casino_Org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Philip Conneller","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/","name":"Crown Resorts Allowed Arms Trader to Gamble Away $6 Million","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/charles.jpg","datePublished":"2019-10-17T23:12:04+00:00","dateModified":"2019-10-18T00:20:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b"},"description":"Crown Resorts criticized for welcoming Joseph Wong Kiia Tai, who stripped African rainforests bare and sold weapons to war criminal Charles Taylor.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/charles.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/charles.jpg","width":2048,"height":1536,"caption":"Charles Taylor, the brutal Liberian warlord and later president of the country, was paid in weapons by Joseph Wong Kiia Tai, who gambled away more than $6 million of his ill-gotten gains at Crown casinos. (AFP\/Getty)"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crown-resorts-allowed-arms-trader-to-gamble-away-6-million\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"News","item":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Crown Resorts Allowed UN-Sanctioned Arms Trader Linked to Convicted War Criminal to Gamble Away $6 Million"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/","name":"Casino.org","description":"Latest Casino and Gaming News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b","name":"Philip Conneller","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png","caption":"Philip Conneller"},"description":"In Philip Conneller\u2019s eight years with Casino.org, he has covered the gaming industry from Las Vegas to Macau and everything in between. He currently focuses his coverage on gaming law, white-collar crime, global money laundering, tribal gaming, politics, and regulation. Philip was the original features editor for poker\u2019s Bluff Magazine and editor for Bluff Europe, which he helped launch. His writing has also been featured in ESPN, Forbes, Time Out, The Sun, and The Daily Star, as well as iGaming Business, eGaming Review, and numerous other industry news and tech websites. His news stories for Casino.org\/news have been linked by The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, People Magazine, and Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, among many others. Philip once won $20,000 with 7-2 off-suit. He has been reprimanded for unwittingly playing Elton John\u2019s piano on two separate occasions on both sides of the Atlantic. He became a writer because he is a lousy pianist. Philip lives outside London with his wife and children, where he spends his time agonizing about Arsenal FC. Contact Philip at philip.conneller@casino.org.","sameAs":["https:\/\/muckrack.com\/philip-conneller","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/philip-conneller-1495a48\/?originalSubdomain=uk","https:\/\/x.com\/casinoorgphilc"],"url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/phillip-conneller\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}