August 15, 2017

Trump denied Australian casino because of alleged "mafia connections'

The Australian - Donald Trump’s plan to build and operate Sydney’s first casino was killed off in 1987 by the NSW government on the back of a high-level police report that warned against the now-US President’s bid because of his “mafia ­connections’’.

The secret report by the NSW Police Board into the suitability of tenderers for the inner-city ­Darling Harbour casino project cautioned that it would be “dangerous’’ to go ahead with Mr Trump’s joint venture with the Queensland-based Kern Corporation, headed by the late developer Barry Paul.

Documents show that the ­Unsworth Labor cabinet met in May 1987 to discuss the assessment of the four tenderers for the project, which also included a fin­ancial report that concluded Mr Trump’s consortium had overstated projected revenues from the ­casino.

Mr Trump had been ­approached by the Kern Corporation — a then successful developer of shopping centres, with strong ties to superannuation funds — to front and operate the casino.

Cabinet minutes from May 4, 1987, contain a summary of the Police Board’s position and show they considered the Kern/Trump bid to be unacceptable. “Atlantic City would be a dubious model for Sydney and in our judgment, the Trump mafia connections should exclude the Kern/Trump consortium,” the report concluded

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't Click on this LINK. You have to pay to read article.
(also, the site wouldn't allow me to merely 'left arrow' out; I had to click on the red X in the upper right-hand corner to get out)
Ughhh...