The Paraguayan sports betting company Aposta.la has denied in a public statement any relationship with illegal activities following accusations arising from a confidential report from the Secretariat on Prevention of Money Laundering (Seprelad), which was shared by local media.
Seprelad’s report was sent to the Public Ministry and later shared by local outlet La Nación. It claims that only 6% of Aposta.la’s operations go through the banking system. Additionally, in a one-year period between August 2018 and 2019, 241 prizes worth over $3.7m were awarded to just 80 people.
“Several people don’t have the justified solvency to place millionaire bets and win repeatedly,” highlights the Seprelad report, which will investigate whether the bookmaker is a front business to launder money for Marco Trovato, owner of Daruma Sam, the parent company of Aposta.la.
“We strongly deny the claims that both Aposta.la and its partners are linked to any illicit activity,” the company said.
“We reaffirm the constant and timely compliance with the different regulations around sports betting by Aposta.la and its partners. From their first days in the industry they have faithfully complied with them,” Daruma Sam added.
Furthermore, the bookmaker said that it is available to the corresponding authorities “in order to cooperate and clarify the situation currently installed in the local media”.
Back in September 2020, Trovato received a sanction from FIFA, which suspended the executive for life due to match fixing problems and lack of cooperation.
The decision to ban Trovato is related to a series of matches that took place between 2018 and 2019, when he was president of the Paraguayan football team Olimpia. At the time, he argued that it was “a political trial where no evidence that was presented or the appeals were taken into account”.
