As a result of investigative activities carried out by the representatives of Investigation Service of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia, for the purpose of misappropriation, criminal prosecution was initiated against four persons on the facts of fraudulent misappropriate of large amount of someone else's property and legalization of illegal income as a group, by prior agreement and abuse of official powers.

Investigation determined that the accused persons, using the names of various individuals, placed bets on pre-selected sports games on the website of an online bookmaker. After the game ended, one of the members of the criminal group and an authorized person from the same company artificially altered the game results in the internal administration program and assigned the status of a winning ticket to a losing one.

In this way, the accused persons took possession on GEL 700 000 approximately belonging to a bookmaker. The accused persons, in order to legalize their illegally obtained income, incorporated the funds acquired through criminal means into the economic turnover and purchased two cars.

During the investigation the mentioned vehicles were seized, as well as a portion of the illegally obtained money a total of USD 52 000.

Investigation is underway under the second and the third parts of article 180 and the second part of article 194 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, which envisages imprisonment from 6 to 9 years.