Malta gaming regulator suspends licence of bookmaker with mafia ties

MaltaToday reported about Bet1128’s ties with Italy’s Sacra Corona Unita in 2016, but MGA insisted its oversight was beyond question

Arrested in 2009: Francesco Martiradonna (face covered)
Arrested in 2009: Francesco Martiradonna (face covered)

A Malta-licensed gaming company which MaltaToday had previously reported upon over its connection to Italian organised crime, has had its licence suspended by the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA).

The regulator took long to finally act by suspending the online gambling licence of CenturionBet Ltd, which operates the Bet1128 brand – despite having already been alerted to the firm’s criminal ties in both the Italian and Maltese press.

The decision was announced on 6 June, with the MGA saying it had suspended CenturionBet’s remote gambling licence, and ordered the company to “indefinitely suspend all gaming operations, cease to register new players, suspend all transactions on all websites, including deposits and withdrawals,” and fully comply with MGA requests for data and documentation.

The MGA said that all websites operating under CenturionBet’s licence were “not approved to be operational by the Authority”, but until recently the Bet1128.com site was still prominently displaying the MGA logo and its suspended licence number.

Again arrested, this time May 2017: Martiradonna is now named in connection with CenturionBet, a Maltese-licenced gaming company
Again arrested, this time May 2017: Martiradonna is now named in connection with CenturionBet, a Maltese-licenced gaming company

But while CenturionBet said the MGA had “identified procedural irregularities in signing contracts with consultants”, it also turns out that an anti-mafia operation in May 2017, dubbed ‘Jonny’, linked the CenturionBet operations to the ’Ndrangheta crime syndicate, which reportedly earned €1.3 million over a 17-month period for allowing CenturionBet to set up internet-connected retail operations on ’Ndrangheta-controlled territory.

According to the investigation by Italy’s finance police, CenturionBet – through the services of Francesco Martiradonna – would have granted access to its online system to the company Kroton Games, which has connections to the ’Ndrangheta’s Arena clan, so that it could transfer large amounts of cash.

But when MaltaToday first reported Bet1128’s connection to Puglia’s organised crime syndicate, the Sacra Corona Unita, the Maltese regulator had taken exception to suggestions that it was unable to prevent the establishment of an alleged mafia-related business concern.

Originally, Bet1128 was owned by the Martiradonna family, before moving the gaming franchise from the UK in 2009 to Malta, so that the company assets would not be seized by a police investigation.

Originally, the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano had revealed how members of the Martiradonna family – who have been given residence permits in Malta – brought the UK-based gaming franchise into Malta through associates of theirs.

Formerly investigated by Bari’s anti-mafia police in 2009’s Operation Domino, the family’s patriarch – Vito Martiradonna – was in 2007 sentenced to three years and four months in jail for mafia association, particularly for his role as a cashier for the Sacra Corona Unita.

By moving the Bet1128 franchise to Malta, the Martiradonna family would have dodged the seizure of its British assets when in November 2009 Operation Domino started closing in on them.

A month later, Martiradonna and his two sons Michele and Francesco were arrested on fraudulent transfer charges, but for which they were later acquitted in 2012. 

Francesco was also charged with cocaine trafficking, for which he first received a 12-year sentence but was later absolved on appeal.

In November 2009, the British company Paradise Bet sold Bet1128 and 11 other assets to the Malta-based company CenturionBet. At the time, Michele Martiradonna was Paradise Bet’s primary shareholder from 2005 until his arrest in December 2009.

While the Martiradonna family denies any connection to the Maltese company, Il Fatto Quotidiano published evidence showing Martiradonna’s two sons listing themselves on social networking site LinkedIn as managers of several gambling operations while operating from the same Maltese address as CenturionBet.

In phone conversations intercepted by the Italian police before the November 2009 sale, Francesco Martiradonna repeatedly discussed moving Paradise Bet’s assets to Malta and once suggested using nominee directors to do this, according to Italian arrest warrants obtained by journalists of the Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI).

Bet1128’s lawyer Fabio Maggesi had told MaltaToday that the MGA had its operation in good standing, describing Bet1128 as “a solid brand that is fully in line with Maltese and European laws.”

On its part, the MGA had told MaltaToday that its due diligence, technical standards and regulatory oversight were “world class and go beyond what other European gaming regulators perform… it is untrue and misleading to allege that Malta is used by online gambling companies to operate illegally in Italy.”

Centurionbet Ltd had at one point in its establishment in 2009 used the services of the Gaming Authority’s former legal and enforcement director, the lawyer Anthony Axisa, as director.

Two years ago, Italian authorities launched a major crackdown on the illegal gambling operations of Malta-licensed online betting site Betuniq, which was accused of having ties to the ’Ndrangheta crime family. The MGA subsequently suspended the licences of a number of associated online operators.

 

The front-page report in Il Fatto Quotidiano reads ‘Companies with clan links find Malta home’ and inside, ‘Bari calling Malta’, describing Vito Martiradonna as a hidden beneficiary for the Bet1128 brand
The front-page report in Il Fatto Quotidiano reads ‘Companies with clan links find Malta home’ and inside, ‘Bari calling Malta’, describing Vito Martiradonna as a hidden beneficiary for the Bet1128 brand