Tag: AML

Turkish authorities have opened a money-laundering investigation into companies owned by fintech entrepreneur Ozan Özerk, whose payment network has also surfaced in OCCRP’s “Scam Empire” fraud revelations. While Özerk brands himself as a cross-border payments visionary and compliance advocate, FinTelegram’s analysis suggests a reputation strategy designed to outrun growing scrutiny of his high-risk payment rails.

FinTelegram’s ongoing Rail Atlas investigation has identified a recurring pattern behind offshore casino payments targeting EU users: anonymous gateway layers route transactions into regulated Open Banking providers—including Yapily, Perspecteev (SaltEdge ecosystem), and now Powens—before reaching bank endpoints such as Revolut.

FinTelegram’s Revolut Rail Atlas has identified another regulated Open Banking enabler inside an offshore casino cashier: Powens, a French ACPR-regulated payment institution. In a test of Luckzie Casino, Revolut appeared as a prominent payment option alongside cards and crypto. The observed flow moved from Luckzie to supergateway.net, then to PayOp, then to Powens, and finally to Revolut’s Open Banking API at oba.revolut.com.

FinTelegram’s Rail Atlas investigation into casino payment flows has taken a new turn. What began with alleged threats against a player has evolved into a pattern: intimidation, followed by silence, and accompanied by public mockery. With no response to formal inquiries but sarcastic engagement on LinkedIn, Impaya’s handling of the situation raises serious questions about compliance culture, accountability, and its role in high-risk payment infrastructures.

A whistleblower has submitted a detailed report concerning the crypto casino Crashino, alleging six-figure transaction activity without proper KYC/AML intervention, account closure, blockchain-traced funds, and post-dispute platform changes. FinTelegram’s preliminary review confirms that Crashino publicly identifies Igloo Ventures SRL as its operator and that Igloo Ventures has already been subject to regulatory action in Sweden and Australia.

FinTelegram has reviewed a whistleblower report indicating that Germany’s financial watchdog BaFin has registered a case concerning Yapily Connect UAB, the Lithuanian licensed arm of the UK open-banking group Yapily. The allegations are explosive: regulated Pay by Bank infrastructure was allegedly used to process deposits for offshore casino brands targeting German players.

FinTelegram’s review of GoldenBet shows a diversified payment architecture around the Santeda Group: card deposits evidenced through Payabl, wallet deposits showing Santeda International Limited as beneficiary via MiFinity, and an Open Banking rail through Bilderlings → Yapily Connect → Revolut’s Open Banking API. This is no longer a single-PSP complaint story. It is a Rail Atlas case study in how offshore casino operators maintain EU-facing payment continuity

A German player’s GDPR request has exposed a critical compliance issue: the Cyprus-regulated EMI Payabl processed multiple credit card deposits to Santeda International Limited, the payment agent behind offshore casino GoldenBet, which operates without an EU license. Despite being alerted to the illegality and the player’s gambling addiction, Payabl refused refunds,

Whistleblower evidence reviewed by FinTelegram indicates that casino deposits may pass through a layered redirect chain before reaching the Paysolo open-banking gateway. The observed flow — Pagagate → Impaya.online → Aceiro.online → openbanking.paysolo.net — suggests that Impaya and Aceiro may function as intermediate routing or masking layers between casino-facing payment gateways and the open-banking execution stack involving Paysolo, Pellopay, Yapily and Revolut.

FinTelegram’s first Revolut Rail Atlas follow-up zooms in on openbanking.paysolo.net, a payment gateway that appears to sit between anonymous casino-facing gateways and Revolut’s Open Banking API. SimilarWeb screenshots indicate that all referring traffic to openbanking.paysolo.net came from the anonymous payment gateways Pagagate and Urbenics in March 2026.

In 2022, FinTelegram warned that MetaTrader’s publisher MetaQuotes sat inside a Cyprus structure with Russian roots, huge market reach, and unresolved beneficial-ownership questions beyond founder and CEO Renat Fatkhullin. In 2026, that concern looks even more relevant.

A new pressure campaign by DDG founder Nivie Kaul is pushing past the usual wallet-tracing narrative in crypto scam cases. Instead of focusing only on who stole the money, Kaul is asking who sat behind the infrastructure: MetaQuotes as the MT4/MT5 platform provider, Raritex as a key ownership layer, and Sumsub as the KYC vendor inside the broader chain. The result is a messy and politically charged story involving the DOJ’s record $225.3 million seizure.