Officers from the National Police have dismantled a criminal group allegedly dedicated to committing fraud through payment gateways, document falsification and usurpation of civil status, using accounts in online gambling operators. They moved more than four million euro in just over two years, and generated a capital loss of at least 350,000 euro. For this type of fraud, EUROPOL has launched, through the AP Sport Corruption, an early warning to the rest of the European countries, with the aim of exploring this type of scams throughout the European Union.
The investigation began after receiving operational information through SIGMA –Global Investigation Service of the Gambling Service- whose purpose was to locate and arrest the alleged perpetrators of a criminal group allegedly dedicated to money laundering in the province of Murcia. The agents took several steps to confirm this point and, once the analysis of the bank accounts as well as the data provided by the online betting houses, the information provided by the General Directorate for the Regulation of Gambling and the statements of those investigated and of the witnesses, the existence of a very complex and specialised activity, carried out by two people as the most responsible persons, was confirmed.
The modus operandi began with the opening of online accounts and bank accounts that controlled identity theft or in collusion with its owners. From these accounts they made payment orders using a gateway to an online gaming platform as an intermediary. Immediately after, this operation was cancelled, but the intermediary (the gateway) had already carried out the operation, for which they obtained two amounts, the re-entry of the money from the gateway into their bank account and the deposit of the amount ordered on the gaming platform. Once the money was received back in the bank account, they immediately moved it to another bank account that they controlled, so that the payment gateway could not claim the refund.
After these steps, the operation was repeated from another account they controlled. With the money that reached the platform’s wallet, they made bets on sporting events that kept low quotas, for high amounts of between 1,000 and 3,000 euro, which, if they won, brought benefits of 0.01 to 0.10 euro per euro wagered. Once the sporting match was over, and although the profit margins were not very high, the player immediately withdrew the funds. The interest of the bettors when playing was not mainly to win money, but to obtain a method to hide the scammed money from the payment gateways and re-enter it into the bank account with the justification of its origin from “Game Prizes”, thus hiding its illicit origin.
The damages caused to third parties in just over two years have risen to more than 350,000 euro. They also used the identity of different people without their permission, both to open online gambling accounts and bank accounts.
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