The Europol report highlights the areas most exposed to money laundering by criminal organisations. In sports betting, especially football, match-fixing is always among the longest-running activities.
Match-fixing warning from Europol
Europol: Football is always at the center of match-fixing
There’s a lot of football, but not just that. Match-fixing has always been among the most common illegal activities for criminal organizations. We learn this from the Europol report, which photographs the situation regarding infiltrated criminal activities in the Old Continent. Among these, match-fixing, i.e. match-fixing in sporting events For the purpose of making illegal money from relevant sports betting.
Football is, for obvious reasons, the discipline of greatest interest to criminal organisations, but it is by no means the only sport involved. Europol has also recorded such phenomena in other very common disciplines. basketball, tennis, handball, cricket and lately there has been alarming growth in the world of e-sports, namely competitive video gaming.
So which competitions do criminal organizations prefer for illegal trade aimed at money laundering? The tendency is to look at the soft underbelly of football, that is, the sub-categories where the amount of money is inevitably very limited and therefore available. more likely to corrupt athletes With economic incentives. Unfortunately, there is a similar discourse for youth clubs.
Maximum interest in e-sports and young people
The last two areas mentioned above are the areas that need to be followed most carefully, but Dimensions of the e-sports phenomenon in Italy and since many young people are involved in this sport, as in traditional sports, there are potential victims of such illegal activities. Criminal networks can easily contact both athletes and clubs through players’ agents or representatives. some corrupt leaders.
So how does this match-fixing phenomenon come to life? Criminal organizations in general (but also, to a much lesser extent, individual individuals) are gravitating more towards the Asian scenario, where it is easier to find betting companies with which they can interact. youth sport must therefore be protectedHowever, excluding it from legal betting markets does not seem to be an effective move.
they have to Watch carefully for abnormal money flows and end illegal betting as early as possible, but this is not easy. Even the most prestigious football competitions and championships are not immune from match-fixing, even if the size of the business and the average salaries of the athletes together with much larger and therefore extremely careful betting volumes are effective “vaccine”.
