Bookmaker investigates activities of Middle Eastern VIP clients

MADRID, 30 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The online betting group 888 Holdings has announced that its CEO, Itai Pazner, "immediately leaves his functions" coinciding with an internal investigation into alleged activities related to money laundering by VIP clients in markets in the Eastern region Next.

In a statement, the Gibraltar-based group has announced that Itai Pazner will immediately leave his duties as CEO, a position he had held for the last four years.

In this sense, the non-executive president of the group, Jonathan Mendelsohn, will assume the responsibility of executive president on an interim basis while the board searches for a permanent CEO.

"On behalf of the board, I would like to thank Itai for his significant contributions to the business over more than 20 years, including the last four as CEO," Mendelsohn stated.

On the other hand, the company has separately reported the suspension of VIP activities in some of its '.com' markets pending the outcome of an internal investigation into compliance issues.

In this sense, after an internal compliance review, the company detected that certain good practices have not been followed with respect to the KYC (know your customer) and anti-money laundering processes for 888 VIP clients in the Eastern region. Next.

"While further internal investigations are carried out, the board has made the decision to suspend VIP customer accounts in the region, effective immediately," reported the company, which estimates an impact of less than 3% on group revenues. in case the suspensions remain in effect.

Also, based on the current knowledge of the board, the identified process deficiencies would be limited to the Middle East region only.

"When we were alerted to problems with some of 888's VIP customers, the board took decisive action. We will be uncompromising in our approach to compliance as we build a strong and sustainable business," Mendelsohn stated.