Bureau of Economic Security Raids Odesa and 6 Cities in Illegal Gambling Bust

Employees of the Bureau of Economic Security conducted searches in Odesa as part of an operation to identify illegal processing centers.

According to the BES press service, simultaneous searches were also conducted in Kyiv, Kotsiubynske, Zhytomyr, Kryvyi Rih, Kremenchuk, Kharkiv, as well as in Zhytomyr and Poltava regions.

Investigators found that the suspects had set up automated replenishment of online casino players' gambling accounts through p2p transfers to card accounts of drops. In addition, the group was engaged in legalization of funds received from the organization of gambling. In particular, they transferred them to the accounts of controlled individual entrepreneurs, transferred them to other dropships, and bought USDT cryptocurrency on P2P platforms. The centers also made payments to online casino players.

The organizers established a constant flow of individuals - drops. They provided their personal data for a fee to open bank accounts. In addition, detectives identified about 4 thousand individuals whose bank accounts were used without their knowledge.

The Bureau found that non-cash funds in the amount of UAH 500 to UAH 30 thousand per transaction were credited to the accounts of the drops. Each account accumulated about UAH 150 thousand per month, which was further used for illegal activities.

Office employees could manage 450 drop accounts from one mobile device. They could process up to UAH 5 million of cashless funds per day.

To do this, they installed online banking applications, messengers and virtual private networks (VPNs), used remote access and masked financial transaction routes.

The IP addresses used to connect to the Internet in most cases belonged to Turkish providers.

About 400 mobile devices, 50 pieces of computer equipment (laptops and desktop computers), approximately 5,000 SIM cards of mobile operators, 500 bank cards of individuals, applications for opening bank accounts from individuals, etc. were seized.

Кирило Бойко