Underground online casinos exposed in Ukraine
The police from Ukraine has discovered a network of underground online casinos with servers located in Russia.
Ukraine.- The National Police of Ukraine continues with its battle against illegal gambling. This time, Ukraine authorities exposed a network of underground online casinos in the country. It revealed that the servers were tracked back to the Russian Federation.
As reported by 112. International —a Ukrainian news agency— the police seized over €850k from the gambling business organisers. “We found that in order to conspire the criminal activity, server equipment and processing centres for payments were located on the territory of the Russian Federation. To legalise funds received as online bets, a 32-year-old citizen used payment systems that are under sanctions,” said the police.
The Ukraine authority also revealed that they found the office from where the casino web administration managed the illegal online business. The police said that they tracked back the office to a private house in the Kyiv region.
As part of the operative, the police seized computer equipment used to conduct the online gambling business. They also obtained draft records that confirmed the criminal activity of one of the citizens detained, the news agency reported.
Ukraine president wants to legalise gambling
President Vladimir Zelensky wants to turn to gambling to boost tourism. Gambling has been outlawed in the country since 2009, but the president wants to legalise it to generate revenue.
Zelensky said on Thursday that he intends to legalise casinos in five-star hotels. “We will legalise gambling, particularly casinos’ operation in five-star hotels. This [step] will stimulate the development of a tourism cluster and region on the Black Sea coast,” he said, according to Tass.
Zelensky talked about the casino industry during the Ukraine-Turkey business forum in Istanbul earlier this month. He said that instead of seeing Turkey as a competitor, he wants to take the Turkish businesses as partners. “Let us jointly promote the tourism brand of the Black Sea across the world,” he told Turkish investors.
