Expert HMRC Tax Investigation Defence Solicitors Bark & Co Designated Law Firm of Choice to Defend Bribery and Money Laundering Charges into Illegal Online-Gambling Scam between UK and Turkey
Operation Incendiary
We are acting for a client in relation to an HMRC investigation concerning online gambling activity in Turkey.
HMRC commenced a probe into alleged bribery at a former Turkish subsidiary of GVC (now Entain), the company behind Coral and Ladbrokes.
GVC sold the business in 2017, and the authorities started to investigate suppliers in 2019 before broadening the scope to include GVC. In November 2023 an agreement was announced whereby Entain would pay penalties to HMRC of £585m over failures to implement anti-bribery measures.
The investigation, which is ongoing, is into an alleged scheme developed to extract from Turkey funds derived from illegal gambling and to disguise the provenance of those funds. Non-state sponsored online gaming is illegal in Turkey and has been since 2006, and there are allegations of deliberate ‘layering’ of accounts to disguise the true source of the funds and the profits for those involved.
It is suspected that our client facilitated the movements in cash of profits derived from the scheme into the UK, and distributed funds among the benefactors. The investigation is into potential fraud, money laundering and bribery offences as well as conspiracy to cheat the public revenue.
