UKGC wants greater AML measures from operators

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) had investigated a case following the conviction of Da Feng Ding who was found guilty of money laundering using Grosvenor casinos to do so.

The case involved “Customer B”, a Rank meccabingo.com customer who is awaiting sentencing after recently pleading guilty to defrauding a six-figure sum from her employers to gamble online at Mecca Bingo online. The UKGC found Rank to be guilty of failing to spot the problem and the customer is now awaiting sentencing.

As a result of the investigations, Rank Group has acknowledged serious shortcomings and failures to apply the lessons learnt from previous scrutiny. The Commission has agreed the operator’s remedial actions including a third party audit of its revised AML arrangements and the surrender of an estimated £950,000 profits that resulted from these shortcomings, to be spent for agreed socially responsible purposes.

Following the decision by the UKGC Rank Group has offered to undertake a critical review of AML controls led by an external source.

The UKGC has also issued a message to other gambling companies to ensure their own AML measures are sufficient for the business to ensure the money gambled by a customer is known where it comes from.