In 2020, as most of the world imposed strict lockdowns to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Belarus took a vastly different approach.
Its authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, dismissed the virus as insignificant, famously suggesting that a few shots of vodka and a sauna were all that was needed to fend it off.
As a result, Belarus remained open while much of the world shut down.
With global sports leagues on pause, the little-known Belarusian Premier League suddenly gained international attention, as it remained the only active soccer league available for betting.
As expected, the league started drawing interest from gamblers worldwide. However, while bettors were flocking to Belarus, a different kind of gambling was taking place behind closed doors at H Casino in Minsk.
A Money Laundering Haven
According to a complex investigation by the exiled independent media organization Belarusian Investigative Center (BIC), H Casino was at the center of an elaborate money laundering scheme.
As COVID-19 restrictions made it difficult for criminals to wash illicit funds elsewhere, Belarus’ lax policies and corrupt officials made it an attractive alternative.
The casino, which opened in 2021 inside Galleria Minsk, a shopping mall owned by figures with connections to Russian and Belarusian elites, quickly became the most profitable gambling establishment in the city.
Within the first six months, the venue earned more than the well-established casinos in the city, with profits going over the $7.5 million mark. By 2023, the casino had turned into the most profitable gambling venue in the country.
The results came amid the number of gambling establishments in Belarus dropping by about 25% between 2015 and 2020, likely due to rising taxes, according to the Association for the Protection of the Interests of the Organisers of Games of Chance’s chairperson, Alesia Pakhomenka.
Operated by a Criminal Mastermind
BIC’s findings suggest H Casino’s success had little to do with legitimate gaming revenue.
Investigators uncovered ties between H Casino and the late Turkish Cypriot crime boss Halil Falyalı, who was assassinated in 2022.
Though the casino was officially owned by Turkish businessman Mustafa Egemen Şener, reports indicate that Şener was merely a frontman, with Falyalı acting as a secret partner in the enterprise.
Falyalı was notorious for his vast, illegal online gambling network that targeted Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic, generating enormous sums of illicit funds.
The U.S. government accused him of trafficking heroin into the UK, while the Department of Justice charged him with laundering drug money within the United States.
The Money Trail
After five failed attempts to get permission to do an interview with Cemil Önal, Falyalı’s former chief financial officer between 2015 and November 2021, BIC journalists secured testimony from him.
The man, who is currently imprisoned in the Netherlands and resisting extradition to Turkey, fearing for his life, detailed how vast sums of money were funneled through H Casino, either physically, by smuggling cash via private jets, or digitally, using cryptocurrency transactions.
A complex network of bank accounts was used to mask the origin of the funds. When players lost money on Falyalı’s illegal gambling sites, the payments would be transferred to individual account holders in exchange for a commission.
The money was then withdrawn in cash, passed to organizers, and ultimately delivered to Falyalı’s network.
Once the funds arrived at H Casino, they were falsely reported as legitimate gambling revenue. From there, they were laundered through luxury real estate purchases in Dubai.
Corruption at the Highest Levels
According to Önal, the scheme thrived under the protection of Belarusian state officials. The man alleged former KGB and military officers played key roles in safeguarding the operation.
One of the individuals named in the report was Vitaly Matys, a former security officer for President Lukashenko, whom Önal identified as a crucial enabler of the scheme.
Falyalı met a brutal fate in February 2022 when his convoy was ambushed by gunmen wielding Kalashnikov rifles near his home in Northern Cyprus, where the Les Ambassadeur Casino owner lived with his spouse and three children.
Four individuals with ties to the Turkish underworld were convicted of his murder, yet the exact reasons behind his assassination remain a mystery.
Belarus is also one of the nations that continue to host 1xBet’s content despite the controversial operator’s blocked status there.
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