23 betting and gambling sites.
Targeted actions by the Cybercrime Prosecution Directorate to combat illegal betting via the Internet, in the context of the holding of the Football World Cup in Brazil
During the police investigations, 23 websites of providers of gambling and online betting services without a legal license were identified
The illegal betting activity also involved matches of the World Cup being held in Brazil
The Cybercrime Prosecution Directorate, within the framework of targeted actions to combat illegal online betting, filed twenty-three (23) criminal cases, concerning websites providing online gambling services, which provided these services without a legal license.
In particular, in the context of a preliminary examination, following orders from the Athens First Instance Prosecutor's Office, a thorough and in-depth police and digital - online investigation was conducted by the Special Team for Combating Gambling and Illegal Betting via the Internet, which has been established within the Cybercrime Prosecution Directorate.
The investigation, in the context of which electronic traces and digital data were analyzed, concerned twenty-three (23) websites, providers of online gambling and betting services.
As it turned out, the above websites - providers were operating without a legal license, have not been subject to the transitional regime of article 50 of Law 4002/2011 and are not related to a similar licensed company based in Greece.
The illegal betting activity also involved matches of the Football World Cup being held in Brazil.
The investigation led to the identification of the countries of management and registration of the disputed domain names and specifically demonstrated that the management and servers of the twenty-three (23) websites are based in various foreign countries, specifically, in the United Kingdom, British Virgin Islands, Belize, Gibraltar, Austria, Malta, Panama, Sweden, Russia and Israel.
As part of the investigation of the case, relevant correspondence was also sent to inform the independent administrative authority, the Gaming Supervision and Control Committee (GSC), which is responsible for the supervision and control of gaming.
It is noted that the above illegal websites are included in the list of the Hellenic Gambling Commission (HGC) which includes websites that are displayed and offer gambling services in Greece, without a legal license ("black list").
After the completion of the investigation, it is no longer possible to access the above websites from internet service providers in our country ("block IP" procedure).
The case files that were formed were submitted to the Athens First Instance Prosecutor's Office.
