The creditor that backed the former management team of Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino was one of nine Hong Kong investors to fly to Tinian late last week with a view to re-opening the shuttered property.
Tim Chen, the principal owner of Tinian Entertainment Corp, chartered the international flight – the first ever to fly to Tinian from Hong Kong – to celebrate the long-awaited opening of Tinian International Airport. But high on his agenda was advancing the possibility of purchasing, renovating and re-opening Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino, which closed in 2015 after former owner Hong Kong Entertainment (Overseas) Investments Ltd (HKE) declared bankruptcy.
Chen has revealed that his company was one of HKE’s backers at the time.
Speaking to local media about his delegation of investors, Chen said, “I have been thinking a lot about investing here so I tried to convince them to put some investment on this island because it is so beautiful. We will have a meeting with the mayor and the delegation members to discuss the project.”
The biggest obstacle to Chen gaining control is the US$75 million worth of fines hanging over the head of whoever purchases Tinian Dynasty.
The civil penalty was imposed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in June 2015 “for willful and egregious violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)” with FinCEN’s assessment finding at the time that Tinian Dynasty failed to develop and implement an anti-money laundering (AML) program.
“No member of Tinian Dynasty staff was delegated responsibility for day-to-day compliance with the BSA. The casino failed to develop and implement policies and procedures designed to ensure AML compliance, or to detect suspicious transactions; it also never conducted an independent test of its systems to ensure compliance. Further, casino personnel were not trained in BSA recordkeeping requirements or in identifying, monitoring and reporting suspicious activity,” FinCEN stated in 2015.
Chen said he was unwilling to take on the AU$75 million fine but hoped a resolution was still possible.
“I am willing to invest and that’s why I hired a lobbyist in Washington DC to help me resolve this FinCEN issue,” he said.
Tinian Mayor San Nicolas told the Saipan Tribune that he hoped to have “three hotels and casinos on the island” with the opening of the new international airport to provide a major boost for potential operators.
“The next step is to make sure we do have rooms but when we had 435 rooms available, the first thing that any investor would ask is, ‘What about your flights coming in, do you have a port that accepts international flights?’ So this takes care of that,” he said.
