The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaumannounced this Wednesday, November 12, that his government will promote reforms to the law to update the regulation of casinos and digital betting platforms, after it was revealed that they detected thirteen establishments with allegedly irregular operations and possible links to money laundering in eight states of the country.
During her conference “La Mañanera del pueblo”, the President recognized that the current legal framework is insufficient in the face of the rise of online casinos, which They have grown without regulation according to their expansion.
“Today many bets are made digitally. There are physical casinos where people go to place bets, they all have to comply with regulations, but now there are many, you see it advertised on many social networks, television, etc., many digital casinos,” Sheinbaum noted in his press conference.
Given what was described, the President recognized that the regularization for the casinos digital “has to be updated” because he assured that when the law was made this way of betting did not exist.
“Then it has to be regulated,” he added, warning that the legal vacuum facilitates its use for illicit financial schemes.
The news comes after yesterday the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP) will identify thirteen casinos where they were detected million-dollar cash operations, international flows and use of unsupervised digital platforms.
In that sense, the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Omar García Harfuch, specified that after an inter-institutional investigation, thirteen physical and virtual gambling houses with irregular operations in Jalisco, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Sonora, Baja California, State of Mexico, Chiapas and Mexico City.
The investigations, in coordination with the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) and foreign agencies such as FINCEN and OFAC of the United States, detected unjustified transfers to countries such as Romania, Switzerland, Malta, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, as well as fiscal simulation and international flows without financial support.
Omar García Harfuch reported that, as a result of the findings, complaints were filed with the Attorney General’s Office, the Fiscal Prosecutor’s Office was notified and activities were suspended, websites and bank accounts were blocked.
Sheinbaum framed the case in a broader strategy to follow the trail of illicit money:
“Part of the security strategy also had to do with what many experts say (…) which is to follow up on the resource that is allegedly linked to organized crime or some money laundering scheme,” he added.
In addition, President Sheinbaum highlighted international cooperation in financial monitoring, with financial intelligence units in the United States and other countries around the world, which she said is part of the collaboration and “of being part of an international organization against money laundering“.
Finally, Claudia Sheinbaum clarified that the crime being investigated is money laundering, not necessarily linked to a specific criminal group.
The future reform, Sheinbaum said, will seek to update regulations, close legal loopholes and strengthen supervision of the digital sector, in a country where online betting advances faster than the legislation that regulates it.
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