Pensioners and Dole recipients in Australian Money Laundering investigation.

The Australian Crime Commission (ACC) believes that millions of dollars are being laundered through casinos by none other than unemployed people or pensioners. Chief Executive John Lawler believes that organised crime is involved in “high level gambling activity” in otherwise legal casinos. At least 15 people have been identified but there must be many more; Centrelink records have been compared to data from Tax offices, immigration and casino loyalty programs that they are forced to release under their license agreements and over 2500 centrelink clients were found to have purchased casino chips worth more than $50,000 with 30 having spends of more than $1.000,000 and one man from Victoria reported to have bought chips to the value of $13,000,000 despite being on the dole. It is accepted that some are merely welfare cheats with gambling addictions but the sums involved do indicate a connection to organised crime. Mr Lawler went on to say “the ACC will continue to work with the casino industry to ensure serious and organised criminal entities involved in money laundering are identified and pursued”. Official estimates claim that organised crime costs the country between $10 and $15 billion each year.

Chris Bowen, Human Services Minister said “Welfare fraud is a criminal offence liable to long jail sentences”, “people who fraudulently claim benefits from Centrelink should consider them selves warned. It’s not a question of if you will be caught, but when”