Gamble doesn’t pay off
SARAH Scopel has exited her role as treasurer of Woolworths Group one month after admitting to the NSW inquiry into Star Casino that she had “utterly” misled the National Australia Bank and China Unionpay about $900m in disguised casino transactions when she worked for Star.
Ms Scopel’s tenure at Woolworths in the crucial and highly sensitive role of group treasurer was first raised by The Australian’s Margin Call column in March when the former Star casino executive and group treasurer gave her damning evidence before the NSW casino inquiry.
A spokesman for Woolworths told The Australian on Friday that Ms Scopel had left the company.
“Woolworths Group and Sarah Scopel have mutually agreed that Sarah will step down from her role as Group Treasurer for Woolworths Group with immediate effect.”
Ms Scopel had told a NSW inquiry into the casino company run by Adam Bell SC in March that she had “utterly” misled the National Australia Bank and China Unionpay about hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions disguised as hotel expenses.
Ms Scopel started as group treasurer at Woolworths in December.
Evidence to the Bell inquiry had revealed that in November 2019, three Star execs – former group treasurer Ms Scopel, chief financial officer Harry Theodore and general counsel Oliver White – worked to disguise as “hotel expenses” $900m in transactions made on NAB Eftpos machines, which were then transferred to patrons’ gambling accounts.
Ms Scopel, once a Macquarie banker and a senior member of treasury teams at Caltex Australia and Origin Energy, also appears to remain on the board of the Australian Corporate Treasury Association.
At the NSW casino inquiry Ms Scopel was asked about an email stating some $900m had been spent on “hotels, restaurants and other entertainment facilities”.
“That statement was utterly false, wasn’t it, and you knew at the time you read this email,” Naomi Sharp SC, counsel assisting the inquiry, asked Scopel last week.
“Yes,” she responded. High-rollers at the casino used China Unionpay cards at hotels attached to Star’s casinos to flout anti-money-laundering and capital export controls set by Beijing to access cash.
Mr White drafted the responses Ms Scopel provided NAB regarding the suspicious China Union Pay transactions.
The transactions raised eyebrows at China’s central bank, which said it had observed individual card holders spending more than $20m at Star and was “struggling to see how this level of expenditure could be made on non-gambling entertainment”.
On Thursday, White said he used “industry jargon” to mislead Star’s banker NAB and China Union Pay and “obfuscate” almost $1bn worth of Chinese debit card gambling transactions.