The UK National Crime Agency (NCA), together with other law enforcement agencies of the European Union and the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC), are investigating the use of the financial system to launder shady money from Russian and Ukrainian bookmakers. One of them is the well-known 1xBet.
According to a source in a British law enforcement agency, the investigation is intended to discover links between banks, financial entities, payment systems, their owners, and management in the UK, Cyprus, Ukraine, Russia, and other countries for the period from 2018 to 2021. Representatives of the Mastercard and Visa payment systems also cooperate with law enforcement agencies.
According to the source, it is known that shady money received through illegal online casinos has been laundered in Ukrainian and Russian banks and financial companies as of today. After that, it was sent to accounts in banks in the UK, Cyprus, Lithuania, Latvia, and other countries.
According to British investigators, one of the key participants in the shady scheme was the Alpari Bank from Ukraine. It was used to launder more than $150 million from Russian bookmakers by using the GlobalMoney payment system from 2019 to 2021. At that time, Pyotr Melnik was the chairman of the board of Alpari Bank. At the same time, the bank belonged to Hedayatollah Bakhtari Musa.
Other key participants of the shady scheme are Crystallbank, Accordbank, and Megabank.
Law enforcement officers also have a lot of questions for the owners and the management of Royal Pay Europe. In particular, they want to interrogate Sergey Kondratenko from Russia, as well as representatives of a few banks in Lithuania and Latvia, which worked with the mentioned company.
According to the investigation, these Ukrainian banks, as well as companies and individuals, including Pyotr Melnik, had close ties with Roman Semiokhin, Sergei Karshkov (who died in June 2023), and Dmitry Kazorine from Russia. Investigators consider them to be the real owners of 1xBet.
Currently, Roman Semiokhin is on the international wanted list on charges of illegally organizing and conducting online gambling activities. In the near future, investigators from UK law enforcement agencies will send a request to their Ukrainian colleagues regarding the participants in the case and will probably visit Ukraine to interrogate the former chairman of the Board of the Alpari Bank, Pyotr Melnyk, who is considered one of the organizers of laundering shady money from Russia and Ukraine in the UK, as well as other participants, including officials of the National Bank of Ukraine.