Organizers of an underground online casino processing system have been detained in Tatarstan.
Date: 2025-10-23 Author: Oliver Abernathy Categories: IN WORLD
In Tatarstan, law enforcement officers have disrupted a group that was illegally operating online casinos under the guise of cryptocurrency transactions. According to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, ten individuals suspected of organizing and conducting illegal financial transactions have been detained.
The investigation established that, starting in January 2024, the group accepted funds from online casino clients through third-party processing platforms. For these purposes, the criminals used bank cards issued to third parties. After receiving the funds, they converted them into cryptocurrency, which was then transferred to the gambling operators.
The participants in the scheme received at least 6% of the total transaction volume for their services. According to preliminary estimates, their illegal income amounted to approximately 4.3 million rubles. Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesperson Irina Volk noted that the detainees attempted to pose as crypto traders and thus disguise their actual sources of income. However, attempts to erase their digital traces were unsuccessful; investigators were able to reconstruct the transaction chain and prove the illegal nature of the activity.
During searches of the suspects' addresses, police seized a large quantity of bank cards, SIM cards, electronic devices, and other equipment used for payment processing. One of the group's members has already been arrested, and the others have been placed under house arrest.
Criminal cases have been opened against the detainees under two articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: Article 172 ("Illegal Banking Activity") and Article 187 ("Illegal Handling of Payment Instruments"). The investigation is ongoing, and police are examining the suspects' financial connections to establish the full scope of the illegal operations and their possible masterminds.
According to Ministry of Internal Affairs representatives, this operation is part of a larger campaign to combat illegal financial flows associated with shady online casinos. The use of cryptocurrency to conceal financial transactions, according to the agency, is increasingly becoming a tool for disguising illegal schemes. Law enforcement officials note that technological advances are making such crimes more sophisticated, but modern digital analytics methods make it possible to effectively detect such operations even when attempts are made to conceal them behind cryptocurrency transactions.
Investigators are currently investigating whether the group had ties to foreign platforms and services and plan to conduct a financial and technical examination of the seized equipment to identify all participants in the criminal scheme.
