A massive Interpol-led operation targeting illegal soccer betting during Euro 2024 seized more than US$59 million in illegal proceeds resulting in 5,100 arrests worldwide, the international police agency said.
The operation, codenamed “SOGA X,” involved the cooperation of 28 countries and territories. It led to the rescue of hundreds of trafficked workers in the Philippines and to the disruption of international money laundering networks. Thousands of illegal betting sites were shut down, according to Interpol.
The illegal gambling market is believed to dwarf that of the regulated markets, especially in Asia. It’s worth an estimated US$1.7 trillion globally, according to the Asian Racing Federation, and soccer is by far the most widely bet-upon sport.
Major soccer tournaments like Euro 2024, which ran from June 21 to July 21, generate a huge upsurge in betting activity.
Human Trafficking, Money Laundering
Illegal gambling is usually tied to other wider organized crime elements, according to Stephen Kavanagh, Interpol’s executive director of Police Services.
Organized crime networks reap huge profits from illegal gambling, which is often intertwined with corruption, human trafficking, and money laundering,” Kavanagh said in a statement. “The successes of Operation SOGA X would not have been achieved without global information sharing and significant efforts by law enforcement authorities on the ground.”
In one instance, police in the Philippines, supported by Interpol, raided a scam center operating alongside a licensed gambling site (POGO). The raid uncovered over 650 human trafficking victims who had been lured to the complex with promises of employment. Instead, they were forced to work for nothing through threats, intimidation, and passport confiscation.
Meanwhile, in Vietnam, police disrupted a sophisticated gambling ring that was generating US$800K in daily transactions. The group used servers located in multiple countries and employed a sophisticated network of bank accounts to launder and layer money.
Mule Accounts
In Thailand, police seized assets worth US$9 million from an illegal gambling and money laundering network, according to Interpol. In Greece, a similar type of network controlled 3,000 fake and “mule” user accounts on legal gambling websites in Greece, Cyprus, and Spain.
The accounts were created with stolen identity cards and forged documents, and used to break down the proceeds of illegal gambling via the legal sites.
Interpol also noted that illegal gambling can be tied to match-fixing.
When illegal gambling is rampant, it becomes easier for corrupt individuals to influence games, so the SOGA X operation also aimed to intercept and interrupt any signal of manipulation,” the agency said.
Those investigations are ongoing, the agency said.
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