Five organisers of the underground payment system AzeCash, through which payments from clients of the bookmakers 1xBet and Mostbet, banned in Azerbaijan, were processed, have been detained in Baku. According to the Main Directorate for Combating Cybercrime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan, the turnover of the payment system amounted to 10 million manats (approximately $5.9 million or 2.7 billion tenge).
WHO IS INVOLVED IN THE CASE
The organisers of the scheme, according to Oxu.az citing the Ministry of Internal Affairs, are named by the investigation as the brothers Zaur and Fuad Narimanov. Their accomplices are named as Orkhan Huseynov, Zaur Shirinov and Emin Mammadov. All five have been charged, and the court has already selected preventive measures for them, including detention.
HOW THE SCHEME WORKED
The investigation established that the organisers rented an apartment in the Khatai district of Baku, placed employees there and provided them with equipment, bank cards and telephones. Through the Telegram channel AzeCash, they attracted citizens to participate in illegal gambling and bets on the platforms 1xBet and Mostbet, which simply do not work directly in Azerbaijan.
MONEY LAUNDERING
The money received from the bookmakers was subsequently laundered through various methods. According to the Telegram channel "Payment Shield in the CIS", the funds could be moved through accounts, then split into smaller amounts and cashed out.
The Criminal Code of Azerbaijan provides for up to eight years' imprisonment for organising gambling with income on an especially large scale. The Ministry of Internal Affairs separately warned citizens that participation in illegal online games entails criminal or administrative liability.
And while the bookmakers 1xBet and Mostbet remain beyond the reach of law enforcement, it is the payment system operators - those who rented the apartment and worked with the telephones - who fall under liability.
WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT SIMILAR SCHEMES
It should be recalled that FBRK previously reported on schemes surrounding Pin-Up. We wrote about the wanted list for Dmitry Druzhinsky and Marina Levkovich, as well as the detention of the blogger Kaisar Kamza and the wanted list for Makhmud Khikmatov.
According to the investigation, Dmitry Druzhinsky and Marina Levkovich coordinated the operations of online casinos under the brands "Pin-Up" and "PINCO" through a network of affiliated companies, including Bonami LLP, which obtained a bookmaking licence under the name Pin-Up-KZ. Public figures promoted the casino to audiences - in particular, the blogger Kaisar Kamza. And Makhmud Khikmatov acted as the link between the casino and the influencers.
Through the payment infrastructure that, according to some media reports, was built by Ilyas Karimov, more than 106.5 billion tenge passed. It is claimed that these funds went through fintech companies and acquiring channels, were then converted into cryptocurrency via the exchange Intebix and were transferred out of Kazakhstan.
Soon after, it became known about the case of Maksym Syhalov, who is suspected of tax evasion on an especially large scale. He is the owner of the non-banking financial institutions Diamond Pay LLC and E-Pay LLC in Ukraine, which provided internet acquiring and payout services for online casinos and bookmakers, including "Ukr Game Technology" (Pin-Up), Vbet and Casino UA.
The laundering of funds was carried out through substituting transaction codes, payments to "drop" cards with subsequent cashing out or conversion into cryptocurrency.
