The prosecutor’s office recently said that an Istanbul court froze the assets of the PayCo electronic payment company. The court also froze the assets of several suspects. The action is part of an investigation into alleged money laundering and illegal betting.
The Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office Financial Crimes and Anti-Terror Financing Bureau detained eleven suspects. The arrests took place in simultaneous raids across four provinces. These actions were part of the investigation.
Authorities accuse the company executives of breaking illegal betting laws and laundering criminal proceeds.
Prosecutors also seized assets belonging to the suspects and to PayCo. They did this to protect evidence and maintain the integrity of the investigation. An Istanbul criminal judgeship of peace approved the measure.
According to its LinkedIn profile, PayCo’s founders established the company in 2020. The company is based in Istanbul’s Ataşehir district. It is a private financial-technology company with 51 to 200 employees. The firm gives a variety of payment services. These include e-wallets, QR code systems, virtual and mobile POS solutions, link-based payment systems, as well as POS integration tools.
The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said it is investigating PayCo based on reports from the Central Bank of Turkey and the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK). The investigation revealed that these platforms funneled income from illegal betting, unlicensed forex schemes, and fraud through electronic money and payment service providers.
Prosecutors said the reports showed that these platforms systematically moved the funds. Domestic and foreign companies then laundered the money.
The prosecutor’s office said the findings showed the activities formed an organized structure. They cited the scale of the financial flows, the number of actors involved, and the continuity of the operations. The office noted that the platforms did not conduct these as isolated individual transactions.
