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DHSM never owned or operated an online gambling site of any kind, anywhere.
DHSM - How Malta rolled dice on online gambling supervision: documents
May 21, 2017
How Malta rolled dice on online gambling supervision: documents
By Francesco Guarascio
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Malta let online gambling firms operate from the island across the European Union between at least 2012-2014 while failing to enforce its own rules on monitoring their computer servers, according to a former employee at Malta’s gaming regulator.
Malta has over the years attracted many foreign companies with low tax rates. In particular, the tiny Mediterranean country has become a hub for the thriving European online gambling industry, which includes online sports betting, web-based casinos, poker and other games.
Of the $38 billion of revenues generated worldwide in the sector in 2015, Europe alone accounted for 48 percent, industry data show. Malta has awarded around 500 online gaming licences, the highest number in Europe.
That means many international gaming companies use Malta-based servers to operate services across the EU – making the role of the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) in overseeing the industry important not just locally but across Europe.
The MGA is charged with vetting applicants for gaming licences and ensuring against money-laundering and other suspicious transactions. An operating licence awarded in Malta allows an online gaming company to operate across the 28-country EU.
MGA monitors companies in part by telling its employees to attach stickers onto the computer servers used to run the gambling websites. Those stickers mark them with an ID number that must match the equipment registered with the MGA by the online operator.
This practice doesn’t modify the machine internally, but it enables the regulator to know which hardware a company is using for its online transactions, facilitating checks on that hardware if ever it suspected fraud or other illicit activity.
Such physical markers are a precondition for any gaming company to obtain a licence and be legally entitled to start operations, MGA rules state.
Yet three separate internal email exchanges shown to Reuters by Valery Atanasov, a former employee of the watchdog, showed representatives of three companies themselves referring to situations that were in breach of that system of markers, known as “seals”.
In at least a dozen other cases, Atanasov reported discrepancies at company sites to his managers at the MGA, which at the time was called the Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA), other emails showed.
Lax supervision “creates conditions that allow suspicious financial operations, money laundering and other criminal practices," Atanasov said, providing no specifics. The Bulgarian national was fired by the LGA in 2015 and is fighting his dismissal in the Maltese courts.
The regulator rejects Atanasov's accusations, saying it adheres to international standards in the fight against money-laundering and terror financing.
MGA chairman Joseph Cuschieri told Reuters the watchdog had additional mechanisms in place to supervise tax compliance and money-laundering which “provide far more comprehensive protection than any physical sealing.” He did not elaborate.
Reuters has no evidence that any online gaming company engaged in wrongdoing and could not verify the assertions made by the participants in the email exchanges.
WHITE AND YELLOW STICKERS
In one email 2012 exchange with an MGA official on which Atanasov was copied, Robert Zammitt, a consultant working for Swedish online gambling group Betsson said that most of the gambling servers used and registered by the firm's Maltese units had not been sealed for years.
"The majority of the servers were never sealed in the first place once installed," Robert Zammit, wrote in an email dated Feb. 1, 2012 to Jason Farrugia, an official at the-then LGA. Betsson had been operating in Malta since 2008. Zammit nonetheless wanted the computers to be sealed to make sure that Betsson could get a new 5-year licence, the exchange on regulatory requirements showed.
Cuschieri - Farrugia's manager - denied that Zammit’s email exposed a shortcoming. "All companies operating in and out of Malta undergo a rigorous licensing process and ongoing monitoring and supervision. Any claims to the contrary are simply unfounded," he told Reuters.
Zammit, senior associate at Maltese law firm WH Partners, said when contacted that he could not disclose information about the matter, citing Maltese law and client confidentiality.
Betsson Vice-President for Corporate Communication Pia Rosin told Reuters any allegations of non-compliance by the firm with Maltese rules had "no substance," and declined further comment.
In a separate exchange of emails dated March 13, 2013 of which Atanasov was one of the recipients, Angelo Dalli, director of Mr Green, an online casino whose parent company is Swedish, told Farrugia some of its equipment remained unsealed.
"I would like to set an appointment for equipment sealing for Mr Green – we have recently installed additional server equipment to improve our disaster recovery capabilities. Additionally there has been some equipment that has been unsealed for a long time as we had asked for a sealing appointment a long time (more than a year) ago but never got such an appointment."
Reuters made three attempts to contact Dalli via his work email and his LinkedIn account but received no reply from him.
According to the MGA's website, any company setting up an online gaming operation must submit a diagram of its computer network to the MGA. Once approved by the MGA and the computers installed, an MGA official goes to the site to tag the hardware and check it corresponds to what was listed on the diagram.
The process involves placing a yellow inventory sticker on each piece of equipment and white stickers binding the hardware to the racks on which it is mounted. In the event of a broken sticker – which could point to an attempt to remove or replace the hardware in order to hide its transactions from supervision - a detailed incident report has to be filed with the MGA.
Even as some companies sought the stickers so they would be operating legally, Atanasov said he refused to put them on equipment on sites where there were discrepancies between the numbers of computers in operation and what was included on the diagram approved by the MGA. He says he feared that by ignoring such irregularities and sealing them anyway, he would be contributing to lax supervision.
SACKED FOR INSUBORDINATION
His refusal, however, drew complaints from licensed companies and their consultants.
One such complaint was made by Anthony Axisa, a consultant working on behalf of the iGame gambling firm, in an email dated Jan. 18, 2013.
"It has come to my attention that for the umpteenth time you went to seal equipment belonging to a client and left without sealing on the pretext that there was a discrepancy between the diagram presented and the equipment on location," Axisa wrote to Atanasov, accusing him of going beyond his remit.
"I cannot be expected to keep track of the version of diagram that you turn up with on the day," said Axisa, who was chief regulatory officer for the LGA until 2007.
Atanasov said he found 11 servers that had not been sealed since March 2012 when iGame started its online betting. He refused to seal them because he said those servers did not match what iGame had declared for registration to obtain its licence.
Contacted by Reuters, Axisa said iGame, part of the Stockholm-listed Kindred Group, "has always been and continues to be fully compliant with each and all the laws of the land".
Sweden’s state monopoly on gambling has been a factor in the rise of online gambling there, with companies like Betsson and Kindred able to operate outside Sweden.
Sven Giegold, a German lawmaker who is a member of the European Parliament committee of inquiry into money laundering and tax evasion, said the emails provided by Atanasov raised serious concerns.
“Malta's strength as a location for online gambling is based on weak supervision," Giegold told Reuters.
The European Commission, in charge of monitoring the functioning of the European Union’s single market, declined to comment on Maltese supervisory practices. There is no EU law on gambling services, but national regulators meet regularly to improve cooperation.
Following complaints by operators about Atanasov, the LGA opened disciplinary procedures against him in 2013. This led to his suspension on July 1, 2014 and dismissal on Feb. 26, 2015, on grounds of insubordination, documents related to his lawsuit for unfair dismissal show. The MGA declined to comment on what it said was a pending case.
"Valery Atanasov was not given a managerial role (...). He simply had to record discrepancies and then seal all equipment," a document signed by a disciplinary board of lawyers appointed by LGA in Jan. 2015 said. "It was not up to him to evaluate whether any item of equipment should be sealed or otherwise," the document, signed by lawyers David Camilleri, Philip Magri and Alex Sciberras, said.
The lack of sealing "meant that the operators could not continue operating legally since their use of unsealed equipment was irregular and in breach of their license," the document added.
Atanasov said he had raised his concerns with Malta’s financial investigation body, the Internal Audit and Investigations Department (IAID), but had received no reply several months after his complaints. IAID declined to comment on the case.
The MGA to this day requires hardware to be marked with stickers as part of the registration process leading to a company being awarded a licence.
While he asserts that there was no breach in the MGA’s supervision, MGA head Cuschieri said the arrangements in place at the time of the events described by Atanasov proved “outdated” and were upgraded around two years ago as part of a new system called "tagging".
Atanasov said there was no difference between the MGA website’s description of its current tagging practice as being based on white and yellow stickers, and what he performed when he was working for the watchdog.
"Sealing and tagging means the same,” he said.
Asked in an email exchange to respond to that point, Cuschieri repeated that the two systems were different but declined to elaborate on how.
(Editing by Mark John and David Stamp)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/malta-rolled-dice-online-gambling-supervision-documents-164637069--finance.html
DHSM - Plenty of documentation on those running the price up then running it down for more profits!
Tic Toc
Shareholders scammed shareholders as well, plenty of evidence where shareholders made up the story to allow these scammers to fleece even more people.
That would be good.
Maybe the news can include all the tickers that died in 2016..... A lot of deleted symbols.....
Yep pretty much, not a single fact in that statement.
BULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLSHITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The fun is just beginning!
In reality, the fun--to the extent there ever was any; I don't remember the stock going up at any time--was over long ago.
Copious DD was done; no one who read it would have even considered buying. In the past several years, nobody was scammed by anyone, unless they scammed themselves into seeing things that weren't there.
Clarence Parks took his chips early and ran for the door!!
#luckyfox
The fun is just beginning!
In reality, the fun--to the extent there ever was any; I don't remember the stock going up at any time--was over long ago.
Copious DD was done; no one who read it would have even considered buying. In the past several years, nobody was scammed by anyone, unless they scammed themselves into seeing things that weren't there.
DHSM - Yep! Perfect crime perpetuated by all of the players who scammed shareholders and investors.
The fun is just beginning!
Hold onto those electronic markers!
Tic Toc
There were no shorts here and those entitlements are still worth NOTHING, but at least now they truly are $0.00.
Shareholders were scammed by insiders and nothing more and quite easily I must say.
A deleted symbol for inactivity does not mean shareholder no longer hold equity entitlements.
Enjoy exploring the wonders of those "entitlements".
Kids. Don't buy POS pinkies.
EOM.
DHSM - Shorts can't close out their risk and cover unless shareholders allow their brokers to remove their shares from their accounts.
A deleted symbol for inactivity does not mean shareholder no longer hold equity entitlements.
Another closely connected ticker to dozens of other targeted plays.
Same brokers, market makers, and insiders, within the regulators, aiding and abetting.
Tic Toc
Oh that's right. I was forgetting.
Couldnt do that either, Global Lock left no trade options on this scam.
Yes. Too bad nobody left with stock tried to take advantage of one final trading day in which, perhaps, they could have dumped some.
Yes, the first deletion was for today when they typically delete an inactive security for the next day. You can see that FINRA also added DHSM to counter the inaccurate deletion posted for today.
http://otce.finra.org/DLAdditions
Then FINRA cleared up their incorrect posting with a second posting deleting DHSM for tomorrow.
http://otce.finra.org/DLDeletions
At least they corrected their error quickly.
LOLOLOL!! You're no doubt right...
Christ! Way to go. Now you've started a new conspiracy.
Now this is weird. DHSM made the deletion list twice, first at 8:38:33, and then at 9:23:12:
But in between, it was added back, at 9:21:22:
The notes for the addition say: "Security Deletion announced in error"…
It looks as if the second deletion will stick. The notes say: "Correction. This will be deleted eff 9/09".
So by tomorrow morning, the ticker will be gone.
Hey, at least you finally get a tax writeoff, unlike all those other POS your holding.
No matter how much you tell people the real story here some still held out on hope and we'll hope has now shown to be wasted effort.
Stay tuned!
Tic Toc
DHSM: effective Sept. 9,2016 FINRA deleted symbol:
http://otce.finra.org/DLDeletions
Dhsm was a pizza company
What did happened ?
Hand was spotting near the black jack table. He was part of Ocean's crew....
Can you show us a document that shows his participation here in DHSM. Otherwise nothing but pure bullshit....
DHSM - All the same players manipulating DHSM. Jehu Hand couldn't resist this opportunity.
Good Luck!
No they didnt, the SEC and FINRA both make it clear as to what really happened here, the insiders fleeced shareholders while telling wonderful stories as they sold unregistered shares by the billions into the market. The fraud is clear as day, thus the multiple Regulatory Actions filed and eventual SUSPENSION.
What is even more amusing was the fact there were shareholders actively aiding them by either promoting the false PR's without any due diligence in the matter and or trying to distract others by making up false market conditions that didnt exist, like abusive naked shorting for example.
How to stay tuned at 0.0001 ?
Can you explain
Did you know aliénor fratoni ?
i still don't understand your broken English.
luc, don't you recall me and many others warning you about all these scams years ago?
You should create then a playlist for all and himself your favorite i think
DHSM - The Hand brothers targeted this one as well.
Stay tuned!
Tic Toc
Just to tell you something
You can stick all you can
They are not going to change the rules for you
Scumbag or scamartist ?
The laws are what you say doesnt still exist
There is lack of evidence there was existed one day
Nss is bullshit now
Good, the documented facts are this was a scam and suspended as such.
DHSM - I will stick with the documented facts.
Good Luck!
Glad to see you've finally figured that out, Luc.
No seven i thought you were right but nss is fantasy created by a foolish man Richard altomare from usxp, a psychopat
In dhsm stories they printed shares to make the company, the salaries alive
They just forgot a certificate, no more shorters than in others bad stories
Yet that isn't even an issue, all trade transactions are collaborated between parties and are Naked Short. Not sure what the point of that statement is.
However DHSM was a scam perpetrated by insiders selling non existent debt to financiers who would then dump billions of unregistered shares into the market without meeting Rule 144 exemption requirements. The proof is in 2 regulatory documents clearly explaning this.
DHSM - Sorry...naked short selling by collaborating parties is very real!!!
Good Luck!!!
I don't know if You noticed but naked short sellers are just fantasy from Richard altomare to get an interest in his company Universal express usxp ?
The cimetary in Bulls are big around otc market
dHsm is just a new grave in the bulls cimetary
Which person was that specifically?
#pc
Did you ever reach Pitt Boss???
I guess the slander against the ex-sec, e-trade employee didn't pan out....
Not here in DHSM, just billions of worthless shares dumped telling a bullshit story and thus 2 regulatory agencies and a Federal Reserve Board member shut it down permanently for it's scam.
Those are the FACTS here in DHSM.
DHSM - Billions of shares sold naked!
that always has been and always will be 100% false, not matter how many times you repeat it.
the well documented extreme dilution here was by the company, which had zero revenues and lied about every aspect of their "business", which never actually existed.
there are plenty of share printing pump and dump scams on the pennies, but DHSM was one of the most obvious.
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