Calls for tougher laws as network stretching from Caribbean to Georgia generates riches for offshore tycoons by appearing to prey on the vulnerableImmaculately groomed and beaming from ear to ear, Andres Markou looks every inch the golden boy of the gambling sector.The youthful boss of MyStake, a fast-growing digital casino, has been pictured shaking hands with the Brazilian football legend Ronaldinho over a lucrative branding partnership.Elsewhere, he can be seen collecting industry awards, or offering “visionary” insights to interviewers.There is only one hurdle blocking Markou’s ascent to the very top of his trade: he does not exist.The photos seem to be AI-generated fakes and Markou, it appears, is a decoy, deflecting attention from the true faces behind a sophisticated network of illegal online casinos.

Operating outside the law and based in opaque jurisdictions such as the Caribbean island of Curaçao, they are free from the legal duty to protect addicts and stop money laundering.Unlicensed gambling websites have been linked to fraud, financial harm and even suicide.The Guardian and Investigate Europe, an independent journalism cooperative, recently revealed how AI chatbots have been helping to drive customers towards these sites.The second part of the investigation delves further into Santeda, the secretive company behind illegal casinos that appear to be targeting vulnerable gamblers.The digital trail extending from Santeda, corporate documents suggest, leads to a business called Upgaming and a group of Georgian businessmen who are quietly getting very rich.

Shortly after the Guardian contacted Upgaming, the company claimed it had severed all ties with Santeda.But questions remain about the organisational structure surrounding a lucrative edifice that British MPs say must not be allowed to stand.Any gambler who visits MyStake encounters a panoply of eye-catching options.Football betting sits alongside everything from classic casino games to slot machine titles with names such as Rise of Merlin and Golden Piggy Farm.MyStake may not be a household name, like Ladbrokes or Bet365, but it is part of a sprawling international empire.

It is one of at least eight apparently connected casino brands, including Velobet, Goldenbet and Rolletto, all easily accessible to punters in the UK via a mobile phone or computer, and all illegal.Collectively, they attracted an average of 2.3 million monthly unique visitors from the UK between November 2025 and January 2026, according to the web traffic analysis firm Similarweb.All appear to be part of Santeda International, a gambling operation that does not have a licence from the Gambling Commission, a legal requirement to serve UK customers.As the Guardian has previously revealed, illegal casinos appear to derive particular benefit from gamblers who are trying to quit.

All are prominent on “affiliate” websites advertising casinos that are not restricted by GamStop, the UK’s “self-exclusion” scheme allows users to voluntarily bar themselves from betting sites.Dozens of affiliates have sprung up in recent years, capitalising on search phrases such as “Not on GamStop”.Any gambler who keys in the phrase – or one like it – is immediately presented with ways to bypass this safety net.The affiliates are paid a fee for the traffic they direct to the online casinos.Margaret, who is in her 50s, knows how easy it is to get sucked in by affiliate marketing.

After suffering health problems and insomnia, she started gambling with well-known licensed sites but, fearing a “slippery slope” towards addiction, she self-excluded with GamStop.After searching online for ways to circumvent the exclusion, she found her way to Goldenbet.“I was hooked quickly and it was a very fast decline after that,” she said.Margaret deposited about £29,000 and won £15,000, of which she withdrew about £6,000.When she tried to withdraw the rest, the site “delayed and delayed”, asking for ID verification that she had never been asked to provide before.

The wait proved too frustrating.Margaret put her winnings back into the casino games and lost everything, coming out down £23,000.When gamblers resort to illegal casinos, they can lose much more than money.In January, an inquest ruled that unlicensed operators were part of the “factual matrix” that led 36-year-old Ollie Long to take his own life.The Labour MP Alex Ballinger said he believed such sites were deliberately targeting vulnerable people who were trying to stop gambling.

He called on the Gambling Commission to take urgent action.In practice, the sheer number of illegal casinos means they are easy for gamblers to find but very hard for regulators to stop.If Markou were really at the head of such an operation, authorities across Europe could try to hold him to account.But pictures of him are highly likely to be either AI-generated or manipulated, analysis by the Guardian and the deepfake detection specialists Reality Defender concluded.A source close to Ronaldinho confirmed their supposed meeting never happened.

Markou’s name appears on no corporate filings linked to Santeda, nor is there any other record of him existing,Clues as to who may really be pulling the strings of MyStake and its sister brands are buried in digital data and corporate documents from countries including Curaçao, Malta, Switzerland, Cyprus, Germany and Georgia,The Dutch-ruled Caribbean island of Curaçao has become a haven for online gambling companies,The island has dished out licences to thousands of online casinos and sportsbooks, offering a fig leaf of respectability while requiring precious little public disclosure,One such licence holder is Santeda International BV.

Last year, the Guardian revealed how Santeda held the licence for sites including MyStake, Velobet and Goldenbet.Crucial to their success, it appears, was – until recently at least – a small group of Georgian nationals and a Swiss-based business called Upgaming AG.According to its website, Upgaming is a provider of software services to “tier 1” gambling companies.Until last week, the company said, one of the buyers of those services was Santeda.Concerns about Santeda targeting UK customers have been well documented since at least December, when the Guardian revealed its ties to illegal casino brands.

When the Guardian first contacted Upgaming in early March to ask about its apparent ties to Santeda, the company’s lawyers denied any suggestion that Upgaming had benefited from illegal gambling,They said that if Santeda or any client had been operating an illegal gambling network, Upgaming was unaware of it,If such an operation was discovered then that client would have breached undertakings given to Upgaming to comply with the law, they added,Upgaming’s shareholders and directors had no “operational involvement or interest in Santeda”, they said,Then, in a statement issued to industry publication Global Gaming Insider last week, the company claimed Upgaming had now severed all ties with Santeda, reportedly owing to Santeda’s “unregulated footprint in restricted jurisdictions”.

Publicly available documents raise questions about these developments, and Upgaming’s role generally, in the Santeda network.Internet domain names for multiple Santeda casinos, including Velobet, were registered directly by Upgaming or its chief executive, Tornike Tvauri.The Georgian businessman’s name also appears on domain registration details for Affision.com, an affiliate management company that has also been used by illegal casinos such as MyStake and Velobet.Upgaming’s lawyers said: “Any person could, without our client’s knowledge or consent, use their name or details” to register websites.

Cypriot corporate records for Santeda’s payments division, Santeda International Ltd, show that its original name was Onyxion.That name is almost identical to Onyxion Malta, which is owned by Tvauri, who also serves as a director.Lawyers for Upgaming said Onyxion Malta was “separate from the commercial and operational activities of Upgaming”.However, Onyxion’s corporate accounts lists Upgaming as a “related party”.Any “inference of a connection [between Onyxion and Onyxion Malta] is completely unfounded”, the lawyers said.

“The fact that the two companies have similar names is nothing to the point – the name was available at the Malta business registry and so it was taken up by Onyxion Malta Ltd,” they said.These apparent connections may be mere coincidences, and the Guardian has not seen evidence of direct ownership or control of Santeda by Tvauri or Santeda.However, until this reported severance, Upgaming appears to have derived financial benefit from providing its services to Santeda and its casinos.If you have something to share about this story, you can contact Rob using one of the following methods.The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories.

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On the northern edge of Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, in the shadow of the foothills of the Caucasus mountains, a new shopping centre is sprouting.A sleek new development, the Autograph Mall, will soon replace a dated complex in garish yellow.Georgian corporate records show the group of men behind Upgaming appear to be investing heavily in the development, among others.One of the owners of the Autograph project, according to corporate filings and online brochures, is Upco LLC.The developer appears to be funded, in part, by the fees Upgaming has received from working with Santeda.

Accounts for Upgaming’s Cypriot entity, Upgaming Ltd, show the company has extended loans worth at least €6.5m to Upco LLC.Upco’s investors include Tvauri and another Georgian named Alexander Makashvili, who is also a shareholder in Upgaming’s German division.Another Georgian, Mikheil Merebashvili, is a director of an Upco subsidiary and a minority shareholder in Upgaming Germany.Upgaming responded to requests directed to Merebashvili, Tvauri and Makashvili.

It denied having owned or operated the Santeda network and said questions should be directed to Santeda.Emails to an address from which Santeda has previously responded went unanswered.The money from the Santeda enterprise may flow around mainland Europe but it is the UK that pays the price.Gambling harm costs the economy between £1bn and £2bn, according to government estimates.In last November’s budget, the chancellor gave the Gambling Commission an extra £26m over three years to tackle illicit gambling sites.

“The Gambling Commission must step in and also ensure they are liaising with authorities in the countries where these people operate,” said the Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith,But so far, the regulator appears to have had only modest success in stopping the Santeda network from exploiting British gamblers,It has targeted the affiliates that recommend them, sending requests to Google to take the sites down,It has even sent takedown requests for some of the casinos operated by Santeda,Yet, as of now, the vast majority appeared to be easily accessible from the UK.

The watchdog is also due to get new powers that would allow it to apply to a court to suspend a website’s domain and IP address.A spokesperson said this would include powers to “seek the blocking of IP addresses and domain names linked to illegal websites”.It is unclear when these measures will be in place and how well they can prevent cash flowing into the coffers of illegal casinos and onward, into real estate projects thousands of miles away.