It’s been more than a year since we covered the story of the allegations made by the now-defunct Mansion Group against the former CEO of the company, Karel Christian Mañasco. Well, today we have an exclusive development, as Mansion Group was itself accused of conducting a list of illicit activities and malpractices.
Back then, we reported that Mansion Group had accused Mañasco of fraud and embezzlement after the company allegedly found several illegal activities that saw the Mansion Group lose millions of dollars.
However, there has been a new development in this case, as it seems that the involvement of Mansion Group in illegal practices goes much deeper than the accusation against Mañasco for allegedly damaging the company.
Mañasco has now accused the Mansion Group of engaging in “grey area gaming”, a scandalous practice that legitimate and properly regulated gambling operators shouldn’t even consider doing.
More specifically, the accusation of Mañasco implies that the Mansion Group was illegally trading in several countries, namely Germany and Austria, an action which led to the defrauding of various governments in Europe.
Mañasco also states that such practices “constitute the true and undisclosed profits” of the Mansion Group in Europe, an allegation that the Mansion Group naturally denies.
Some of the alleged malpractices conducted by the Mansion Group include dodging taxes, working without the appropriate gambling licenses, and providing online gambling services in countries where gambling is illegal.
In addition to its main operating base in the UK, the allegations against Mansion Group mention illegal activities in a long list of countries including Belgium, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, and South Africa.
Moreover, Mansion Group is accused of setting up untraceable covert companies in the Caribbean Curacao in 2011, some of which through the infamous Mossack Fonesca law firm, which was made notorious by the Panama Papers scandal.
This is also the case with Casino Midas, a company allegedly opened by Mansion Group in 2011 with the goal of providing its gambling services in France, right after the country decided to ban offshore online gambling operators.
Casino Midas continued working and profited until 2015 when the company was shut down by French regulators after the government blacklisted the operator and threatened it with an investigation.
And the story doesn’t end there. There are several other controversial situations involving the Mansion Group that contributed to this company ending up in the news for all of the wrong reasons.
The first one is the connection between Mansion and Putera Sampoerna, an Indonesian billionaire who is speculated to have owned the company. This is because Mansion was a European branch of the Asian gaming brand M88 owned by Sampoerna that also operated notable brands such as Mansion Casino, Casino.com, and Slots Heaven from their head office in Gibraltar.
This is important, as back in 2020, AFC Bournemouth, a Premier League football club, ended its sponsorship deal with Mansion Group after the UK Gambling Commission launched an all-out investigation into the company.
Back then, the UKGC announced that it started an inquiry into “various aspects” of the “model and operations” of Mansion Group, an investigation that led nowhere being that the company closed down operations in September of 2023.
The biggest controversy involving the Mansion Group, however, is the decade-long link between the company and Albert Isola CBE, a former Finance and Gaming Minister of Gibraltar.
During this time, the family-run law firm of Albert Isola and his brother Peter Isola was the official representative of the Mansion Group, including the contentious case against the former CEO of Mansion, Karel Christian Mañasco.
The defunct Mansion even had an office space in the even more controversial Europort building, also owned by Isolas. The moot Europort building came to light after Isolas purchased it from Rifaat al-Assad in 2018 for a very low price, an individual who is the sanctioned uncle of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Now, this is where the story gets even more interesting.
The judge who approved Isolas’ controversial purchase from a sanctioned individual and a general in the Syrian army accused of massacring thousands of civilians in his country, is Chief Justice Anthony Dudley, the same judge officiating the legal case between Karel Christian Mañasco and Mansion.
While the legal proceedings against Karel Christian Mañasco by the Mansion Group are still ongoing, the former CEO states that the Mansion Group engaged in a long list of illegal activities that indicate illicit behaviour.
The list includes allegedly frauding the Austrian and German governments out of taxes, as well as defrauding affiliate partners.
According to Mañasco, one of the reasons why he was forced out of the company in 2021 was his refusal to participate in similar illegal schemes, this time involving the Israeli gaming market.
Being that this legal battle is still ongoing and the end is nowhere near in sight, all we can do is wait to see how this entire drama will unfold.
