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Europol crime chief urges faster information sharing with gambling operators
Investigators say cross-border payments move faster than law enforcement can respond. They want closer cooperation and feedback on suspicious-transaction reports.
Europol’s financial crime chief has called for faster information sharing between gambling operators and law enforcement as investigators confront fraud involving instant payments and cryptocurrency.
Giuseppe Lopez, head of Europol’s European Financial and Economic Crime Centre, spoke to iGaming Business last week at SiGMA World in Rome. He said operators and investigators need closer contact to respond as money moves across borders in seconds.
“Fraud is getting faster and faster,” Lopez told the outlet. He said gambling is a key area of Europol’s work, particularly in fighting money laundering, and that suspicious-transaction reports provide much of its raw intelligence.
Lopez said Europol wants to give operators feedback so they can better identify unusual activity that could become evidence or an investigative lead.
Jason Sandoval, a former US Drug Enforcement Administration investigator who runs European operations for Asset Reality, called for a mandatory feedback system for firms that file reports. He also proposed using artificial intelligence to analyze data already held by authorities.
Sandoval said cross-border requests under mutual legal assistance treaties can take six months to process. By that point, he said, “the crime that you’re trying to prove is long gone”.
A survey published last year by identity-verification firm Sumsub found that 82.9% of iGaming operators reported an increase in fraud, while 41.9% identified deposits as their main weak point.
Lopez pointed to the EU’s recently established Anti-Money Laundering Authority, whose remit includes gambling. Europol plans to work with the authority and private partners; the Anti-Money Laundering Regulation also provides for public-private information sharing under Article 75.
Francesco Venditti, who heads the Special Unit for Combating Technological Fraud at Italy’s Guardia di Finanza, said cryptocurrency transactions involving illicit gambling sites can be difficult to trace. He said a specialized unit traces cryptocurrency, seizes or freezes it where possible and shuts down illegal online gambling sites.