A major international sting operation led by the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) against illegal football gambling has resulted in over 5,100 arrests and the recovery of more than $59 million in illicit earnings.
The operation, known as SOGA X, ran from June to July 2024, coinciding with the UEFA 2024 European Football Championship, a time of heightened betting activity that drew the attention of both law enforcement and organized crime networks.
SOGA X was a collaborative effort led by INTERPOL, bringing together law enforcement agencies from 28 countries and territories. The operation targeted illegal online football betting, aiming to curb the surge in illicit gambling that accompanies major sporting events like the UEFA European Championship. The global illegal gambling market is valued at an estimated $1.7 trillion, according to the Asian Racing Federation, with criminal groups taking advantage of its massive profitability to fund other illicit activities.
The operation’s success extended beyond the seizure of illegal earnings, as tens of thousands of unauthorized gambling websites were shut down, disrupting a web of illegal operations spanning multiple countries. In many cases, the investigations unearthed broader criminal activity, including human trafficking and money laundering rings.
In the Philippines, SOGA X led to a significant breakthrough when local authorities, supported by INTERPOL, dismantled a scam center operating in tandem with a licensed gambling site. The raid resulted in the rescue of more than 650 victims of human trafficking, including nearly 400 Filipinos and over 250 foreign nationals from six countries. Many of these individuals had been deceived with false job offers, only to find themselves trapped in abusive working conditions, facing threats, intimidation, and the confiscation of their passports.
The victims were forced to work for the licensed gambling operator while also running illegal online scams, such as romance frauds and cryptocurrency scams. INTERPOL’s Operational Support Team provided crucial on-the-ground assistance, from analyzing digital evidence on seized devices to tracing financial flows and identifying suspects across different jurisdictions.
The SOGA X operation also dealt a blow to illegal betting syndicates in countries with strict gambling laws, including Vietnam, where all forms of online gambling are banned for citizens. Authorities there dismantled a highly organized operation that was handling an astonishing $800,000 in daily transactions. This syndicate relied on servers spread across various countries and used a complex web of bank accounts and e-wallets to handle bets and process payouts.
The extensive financial networks employed by the syndicate made it difficult to track, as criminals sought to evade detection by distributing funds across numerous accounts and jurisdictions. This strategy is common among organized crime groups, which use these methods to launder money and obscure the origins of their illicit gains.
In Thailand, law enforcement officials targeted two locations that served as hubs for illegal betting, apprehending the leaders of the operations and confiscating assets valued at over $9 million. These raids exposed not only illegal gambling but also complex money laundering schemes designed to funnel criminal profits back into the underworld.
Greece also saw a significant takedown, with authorities dismantling a ring that manipulated fake and mule user accounts to place bets on sports events. This group leveraged VPNs to bypass internet restrictions, operating at least seven illegal gambling sites and accessing accounts on 60 others. Using stolen identities and fabricated documents, they managed a network of around 3,000 fake accounts on legal gambling websites across Greece, Cyprus, and Spain. During the investigation, laptops containing over 9,000 images of fake identification cards were seized, revealing the scale of the operation.
The syndicate’s strategy of dispersing large sums of money across multiple accounts is a classic method used to evade scrutiny from financial institutions and law enforcement. By breaking down larger transactions into smaller, less suspicious amounts, these groups effectively obscure their operations, making it more challenging for authorities to track and dismantle their networks.
SOGA X’s success is a testament to the power of international cooperation. With the support of the Asia-Pacific Expert Group on Organized Crime (APEG), the INTERPOL Match-Fixing Task Force (IMFTF), and UEFA, INTERPOL played a central role in facilitating intelligence sharing and providing training to local law enforcement agencies.
Stephen Kavanagh, INTERPOL’s Executive Director of Police Services, emphasized the importance of global coordination in tackling these complex criminal networks. “Organized crime networks reap huge profits from illegal gambling, which is often intertwined with corruption, human trafficking, and money laundering. The successes of Operation SOGA X would not have been achieved without global information sharing and significant efforts by law enforcement authorities on the ground,” he said.
Illegal gambling operations are often closely tied to match-fixing, as criminal groups seek to manipulate game outcomes to secure guaranteed wins. By controlling the results of sports events, these syndicates can cash in on bets placed through their illegal networks. One of the goals of SOGA X was to intercept such manipulation efforts, with investigations continuing in several jurisdictions to uncover and prevent potential match-fixing incidents.
