- The Guardian
- Issue #2038
Photo: youtube.com
Troy Stolz was employed by the gambling industry lobby group, ClubsNSW as an anti-money laundering compliance auditor. He turned whistle blower after finding that 95 per cent of NSW clubs were failing to comply with laws designed to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing and alleging no action was taken.
Since going public in 2020 Stolz has lost his job and faced a series of court actions by ClubsNSW at a reported cost so far of $900,000 in legal proceedings. He has lost his home and on top of that, now has terminal cancer.
How easy it is to turn dirty money into clean money was demonstrated in a since-deleted video Stolz appeared in with comedians Alex Apollonov and Aleksa Vulovic, cofounders of Boy Boy YouTube, and political comedian Jordan Shanks-Markovina (Friendlyjordies) as they visited several clubs in the western suburbs of Sydney.
They entered the clubs with $10,000 in notes to feed the pokies. At the first club which had 743 pokies, they managed to put in $7,500, gamble two cents and use a card to receive the maximum cash payout of $5,000 in “clean money” with the rest in the form of a cheque.
At the next club, they wore t-shirts – one saying, “Look at me I’m laundering money right now” and the other “I’m with money launderer.” The only reaction from staff was they were told to stop filming the machines. They even sought assistance on how to get their money out without any reaction from staff. In this instance they “cleaned” their money without gambling. It was too easy!
They managed to “clean” $22,500 in one day without any effort.
Stolz and Friendlyjordies face criminal prosecution, not by the state prosecutor but by ClubsNSW, with the possibility of jail terms.
With his YouTubes and other reporting, Friendlyjordies has trodden on the toes of not only the clubs lobby group but extremely powerful corporations and politicians. His house was firebombed twice last November. Fortunately, he was not in it at the time.
