Italy busts illegal online gambling operations
The illegal online gambling systems are suspected to be controlled by mafia clans in Italy.
Italy.- Three different investigations by prosecutors of Bari, Reggio Calabria and Catania, coordinated by the National Directorate of Anti-Mafia and Counter-Terrorism have revealed that the mafia has divided and controlled the illegal online gambling market. Operations conducted this week resulted in 68 people arrested and the seizure of over a billion euros.
The investigators of the Guardia di Finanza and the police discovered that the volume of bets regarding sporting events is over €4.5 billion. The alleged crimes range from the mafia association to the fraudulent transfer of values, from recycling to money laundering, from the illegal collection of online bets to fraudulent subtraction from the tax levies of the relative earnings.
The investigations showed that the criminal groups had divided and controlled, in a mafia way, the illegal online betting market through different platforms managed by the same organisations. The illegally accumulated money, the route of which was monitored by the Guardia di Finanza, was then reinvested in real estate assets and financial positions abroad under the name of different people, institutions and companies, which were all disguised.
Local outlet RAI News revealed that the collaboration of Eurojust and the judicial authorities of Austria, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, the Netherlands, Curacao, Serbia, Albania, Spain and Malta was fundamental in tracking the accumulated assets and carrying out the seizures.
