Report: Meeting The Money Man Behind An Online Gambling Empire(Summary)
Courtesy: Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project(OCCRP)
In this edition of OCCRP Weekly, we’re taking a look behind the scenes of our new investigation into an online gambling empire and the behind-bars interview that helped reporters piece together its inner workings.
When OCCRP reporters heard voice recordings published online of a man who identified himself as the jailed accountant of murdered Halil Falyali, their interest was immediately piqued. The man was laying out the details of what he alleged were illicit gambling operations he helped his boss orchestrate in places like Albania, Belarus, North Macedonia, Malta, and Armenia all places where OCCRP has a strong reporting network.
This man, Cemil Önal, had been arrested in the Netherlands in December 2023 on a Turkish Interpol warrant over his alleged role as “one of the masterminds” of Falyali’s murder. (He denies being involved in the killing and is now fighting extradition to Turkey.) Reporters spent three months figuring out exactly where Önal was being held, and another five months awaiting Dutch authorities’ permission to interview him.
Late last year, they were finally able to visit Önal, alongside a human rights lawyer representing him and a prison-approved interpreter.
Önal was wearing his own clothes and walking around freely. At one point, his blood sugar dropped and he left the interview room to ask guards for a chocolate bar.
“He doesn’t look like a typical accountant,” said one OCCRP reporter on the story, who is staying anonymous for safety reasons. Instead, he’s “this towering guy with tatted up arms and a gold chain.”
During the three-hour visit, reporters were able to record their conversation. Önal hand-drew diagrams as he explained how online gambling works; how the websites allegedly created for Falyali operated; how he oversaw a system of thousands of mule accounts to launder what he claimed was at least $80 million in illicit funds each month; and how he helped arrange some $15 million in “sponsorship” payments to public officials in Turkey and northern Cyprus a month.
A lack of documentation meant OCCRP was unable to independently verify the specific figures Önal provided, but an expert who studied similar operations in Asia said they were plausible.
Önal decided to speak to reporters because he is afraid his life would be in danger if he were extradited to Turkey he knows too much about payouts made to powerful people, he said. By going public with what he knows, Önal said he was hoping Dutch authorities would understand the risk to his life and refuse to extradite him.
After the interview, OCCRP reporters began corroborating Önal’s claims in collaboration with 14 partner media outlets. They did this by digging up company, property, and travel records, accessing Turkish investigations and indictments, as well as conducting interviews across various countries.
“As OCCRP, our strength is in the local partners and the local knowledge,” the OCCRP reporter said.
For each country involved in the scheme, the collaborating reporters had a running dossier of information, and follow up-questions to bring to Önal. Each weekend for months, he would reach out to reporters by phone to answer follow-up questions. Some 20 additional hours of interviews were recorded.
Through their reporting, journalists found over $60 million worth of properties — purchased by Falyali’s widow the year after her husband’s murder in Dubai, which Önal identified as a major base for the alleged organization’s ongoing operations. (She did not respond to questions about the source of funds used to buy the properties.)
Turkish prosecutors also claimed that the organization recruited thousands of people to open bank, credit card, cryptocurrency, and online payment accounts to move the illicit gambling proceeds. But it’s the “sponsorships,” or pay-outs to officials, that Önal says allowed this online gambling scheme to operate.
“We’re called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project because we report on the two things, and it’s also just well-known that organized crime depends on corruption,” the OCCRP reporter said.
“But it’s so rare that we get a story where we see the symbiotic relationship between the two laid out so clearly.”