After a 15-month investigation by Eurojust and Europol into illegal gambling websites and machines, Portugal’s GNR carried out 267 national house searches and 8 house searches in Luxembourg earlier this week.
As a result, 30 individuals were arrested in Portugal and one detained in Luxembourg under a European Arrest Warrant.
Cash totalling €576,000 was seized alongside 3,000 computer devices used for illegal gambling, 22 firearms, 86 vehicles, including several top of the range models, and several bank accounts resulting in the recovery of more than €6 million in criminal assets.
Fourteen companies and 93 people from Portugal, Luxembourg, Brazil and Switzerland also were indicted.
The investigation revealed a well structured transnational criminal organisation operating in Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal and Switzerland.
The organisation used servers and software to provide games of chance, lotteries and sports betting.
The purpose of the network was to receive money from various sites and locations and reinvest the proceeds in legitimate businesses. The international network used server domains and software for the development of games of chance, lotteries and sports betting, based on the provision of hardware to an extensive web of local operators and operators of food and drink establishments in Portugal, Belgium, Brazil, France, Luxembourg, Mozambique and Switzerland, generating an estimated revenue €80 million, on which the payment of taxes due in each of the countries was evaded.
Europol provided on-going analytical support, organising and funding operational meetings between Portugal and Luxembourg and by deploying its staff members and mobile office capabilities to Portugal and Luxembourg.
