Last Saturday, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said that it had identified and destroyed the largest organized online gambling and betting network that targeted Islamic Republic citizens.
The ministry has accused the UK government of turning a blind eye to the London-based Mafia network. This is in return for huge taxes from fraudulent and illegal funds, known as Nitro Bet or Nitrobet.
Nitro Bet is not a recognized brand in the United Kingdom for operating online gambling. It is also unclear why it would be paying taxes to the British government on bets taken in Iran. Of course, it is unless it was a secretive arm of a better-known betting company.
However, Britain had practically paved the way for criminal actions including money laundering according to Iran claims.
Since the 1979 revolution, gambling has been illegal in Iran. According to the Quran, Muslims forbid gambling. Islamic scripture describes games of chance as a grave sin and abominations of Satan’s handiwork. Nonetheless, enforcing the ban is difficult. This is due to authorities finding themselves playing a game of whack-a-mole with agile operators based overseas.
According to Iranian intelligence services, 14 months of complicated intelligence research and surveillance resulted to the takedown of Nitro Bet.
The Intelligence Ministry reported that the gambling network has controlled around 35,000 domestic bank accounts and 1,200 payment gateways.
Online gambling operators likely used these methods to target the profitable Chinese black market. They referred to these accounts as “farmer accounts.” Gambling sites buy up or rent thousands of personal bank accounts from regular citizens with the help of agents based within a targeted market. This is usually the rural poor or farmers in China.
The system allows illegal operators to move the proceeds of gambling out of the country. There is no restriction on Western countries receiving payments from Iranian bank accounts while Iran is subject to certain international financial sanctions.
