Bank held funds allegedly stolen and gambled away
Owners of Hong Kong's Omar III floating casino are involved in a dispute with banking group JP Morgan Chase over who should pay the $19 million believed to have been stolen from an Australian pension fund and gambled aboard the ship.
Australian police have charged six men with conspiring to launder A$150 million (HK$895 million) stolen from the Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme the bank held in trust on Christmas Eve in 2000. All six have been granted bail.
Police allege the six men attempted a series of transactions to pass on the money to bank accounts in Hong Kong, Switzerland and Greece.
All the money has been recovered aside from the sum squandered in the casino.
Two of the men, disability pensioner Alexander Roizman, 50, and Jian Ping Wang, 39, are said to have transferred HK$150 million into the casino's HSBC account shortly afterwards and spent the night gambling, losing HK$19 million.
In the morning the pair tried to withdraw the remaining money, police said, but the transaction was stopped by quick-thinking casino staff, who contacted HSBC about the money.