Turkish gambling mogul investigated over money laundering and illegal betting network

Polish authorities are looking into Kılıçaslan and several related entities in connection with a money-laundering investigation, a spokesperson with the Warsaw District Prosecutor’s Office confirmed. The official declined to answer if Kılıçaslan is formally a suspect in this case and provide further details, citing the ongoing nature of the investigation. 

Authorities in Spain, meanwhile, have banned Kılıçaslan from leaving the country following his arrest on unrelated sexual assault charges there.  

Kılıçaslan did not respond to questions sent to his Polish company in December, or requests in May for an interview. He did not respond to questions sent in June to personal email addresses, and to a lawyer representing the companies. The attorney acknowledged receiving the request, but stated that he did not represent Kılıçaslan in his personal capacity.

In November 2025, the Istanbul prosecutor’s office announced a warrant for Kılıçaslan’s arrest on suspicion of facilitating and advertising illegal betting and gambling operations. That triggered an Interpol Red Notice. 

Istanbul prosecutors specifically cited five digital platforms they linked to Kılıçaslan, all featuring variants of the brand name “MeritKing.”

Reporters found that Kılıçaslan’s former company in Ukraine registered a trademark for the MeritKing logo featured on the banned MeritKing sites, which are still operating. 

Turkish authorities have played digital whack-a-mole to block these sites, which routinely pop-up elsewhere under slightly altered web domains. Meanwhile, Kılıçaslan’s Warsaw-based firm, FAF Global Company (renamed Oliwka Covenant Technologies in May), promoted themto Turkish-speaking clients, reporters found.

A former FAF Global employee, who spoke on condition of  anonymity, told reporters that firm was used to promote MeritKing, as well as two other gambling sites banned in Turkey that operate under the brands MadridBet and KingRoyal.

The former employee also said that whenever Turkish authorities blocked one of the domains, a new one with a similar name would be immediately created. FAF Global employees would then allegedly notify customers of the new address via SMS, and messengers like Telegram and WhatsApp.

The former employee provided reporters screenshots with several such messages informing that the site had moved to a new mirror domain.

A review of betting sites blocked by Turkish authorities shows that more than 100 variants of MadridBet and MeritKing were banned between 2018 and 2023. The banned sites feature numbers – increasing over time following each ban – added to the new MadridBet domain. 

In 2018, Turkey banned the domain MadridBet10.com. By 2023, the number appended to mirror sites had risen by more than 500, with Turkish authorities banning MadridBet569.com. That number went up to at least 940, according to internal messages related to MadridBet that reporters reviewed.

During a visit to FAF Global’s Warsaw offices late last year, a reporter from TVN’s Superwizjer observed an employee’s computer screen showing the MeritKing website with the same logo previously registered by Kılıçaslan’s Ukrainian firm, which is now owned by a self-described proxy. The person didn’t provide the name of their client and said that he doesn’t remember Kılıçaslan.

It is illegal under Polish law to promote or advertise gambling in Poland without a license, punishable by a fine. 

When confronted with findings, Utku Sarper, the CEO of FAF Global, insisted in an interview in April that its business in Poland was legal, saying the company provides services to gambling platforms, including telephone marketing. When asked about Merit King and King Royal websites, he said they are “run by our clients, and they have licenses to operate them.”

“We provide services to these clients…They give us a list of users, and we provide the service of calling them or making outbound calls for marketing purposes. So it’s about marketing certain products,” Sarper said.

However, reporters found that two of the gambling sites are licensed in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of Comoros, and one of its autonomously governed islands, Anjouan – permits that are not recognized by EU regulators.

Advertising and promoting gambling without permits from the Finance Ministry is prohibited in Poland, according to Dominika Bura, a Warsaw-based lawyer specializing in Polish gambling law.

“If it is confirmed that the company carried out marketing activities, including outbound calls aimed at acquiring or retaining users of brands such as MeritKing or KingRoyal, we are dealing with a potential violation of the Fiscal Penal Code,” Bura said. 

A month after the interview with its CEO, FAF Global was renamed Oliwka Covenant Technologies, and the company said it has “no business relationship” with MeritKing, MadridBet, or KingRoyal.”

Oliwka Covenant Technologies is owned by another Polish company called Euromatch Group. The listed beneficial owner of Euromatch Group is Semih Saçlı, who was a member of the management board of a Polish foundation presented as Kılıçaslan’s charity operation.

Kılıçaslan founded Euromatch Group under the name AKIF Capital, and wholly owned it until June 2026. Saçlı told reporters that he approached Kılıçaslan with an offer to buy the company because he recognized the business’s potential and the risk that ongoing media pressure could lead to its collapse.”

Saçlı said Kılıçaslan has “no role” in the company and “no involvement” in its current operations. 

From Slot Supervisor to Gambling Mogul

Kılıçaslan was born in the city of Balıkesir in northwestern Turkey. According to records maintained by authorities in northern Cyprus, he worked as a slot supervisor at the casino of a five-star hotel in the beach town of Kyrenia in northern Cyprus, which has been occupied by Turkey since 1974.  

Tightly controlled in Turkey, gambling flourishes in northern Cyprus, where dozens of casinos operate, as well as companies running Turkish-language online sports betting sites and unlicensed gambling websites.

Corporate and licensing records reviewed by reporters show that Kılıçaslan had been involved in online gambling since at least 2016 under the brand BetExpress, for which he registered at least two websites using his name and contact details. 

Two years later, Kılıçaslan set operations in Ukraine with a company called New Federer. The company operated a call center that triggered an investigation by the Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) for allegedly defrauding Ukrainian and Turkish citizens. 

In April 2022, a Ukrainian court in the central city of Vinnytsia ordered a search of the office of New Federer. The SBU told NGL.media that in August of that year, it transferred the case to the National Police of Ukraine, which said only that the probe was ongoing.

Ownership of New Federer has since been transferred to a Ukrainian man who is the listed owner and manager of hundreds of companies in Ukraine, and has multiple criminal convictions related to narcotics and robbery.  

NGL.media tracked down the proxy owner to ask him about New Federer, which has changed its name to Advice House Plus. He said he took 1,000 hryvnias (around $20) for each company that he registered in his name, and that he doesn’t remember Kılıçaslan.

In December 2023, Kılıçaslan’s name again surfaced in Ukraine. This time, a Kyiv district court reviewed a Turkish request for information on “procedural actions” related to Kılıçaslan. NGL.media confirmed that the Kyiv court forwarded records based on the request, but reporters were unable to confirm their contents or their recipient. 

Around that same time, the Ukrainian company Kılıçaslan founded was granted two trademarks it had applied for in Ukraine two years earlier. 

One of those trademarks was for the MeritKing logo targeted by Turkish authorities in their pursuit of Kılıçaslan. The other was a logo for a sports-betting platform called Euromatch.

Oliwka Covenant Technologies told reporters in June that it is making a “strategic transition toward the Euromatch brand,” and that the company’s client portfolio is “under active review.”

Spanish Arrest 

By the time Turkish prosecutors announced an arrest warrant for Kılıçaslan in November 2025, he had already drawn significant public attention in Poland. In particular, many noticed FAF Global’s purchase of an apartment on the 50th floor of the glimmering Złota 44 high-rise in central Warsaw for nearly 7 million euros (almost $8 million at today’s exchange rate).

In February 2025, Kılıçaslan also appeared at the opening of an amusement park in a shopping center in the central city of Lodz next to the mayor and a Turkish businessman currently on trial on allegations — which he denies — of trying to bribe a different Polish mayor. 

Kılıçaslan has since virtually vanished from the public eye in Poland. But on March 24, 2026, he was arrested in Barcelona on two charges of sexual assault, judicial officials confirmed. 

Spanish authorities informed the Turkish consulate and confiscated his passport, which prevents him from leaving the country, a Spanish court spokesperson confirmed. Another of Kılıçaslan’s companies, Fedcel Group, had been operating in Barcelona since 2024. A year earlier, he had registered a call center in neighboring Portugal. The listed director of Fedcel Group is Saçlı, the ultimate beneficial owner of Kılıçaslan’s now-renamed FAF Global in Poland.

While reporters were unable to obtain details about the ongoing Polish money-laundering investigation involving Kılıçaslan and his related entities, a Polish law-enforcement official said the gambling mogul’s bank accounts and those of FAF Global had been blocked. He declined to provide further information, including if Kılıçaslan is formally a suspect. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the confidentiality of the probe.

Saçlı, who now owns FAF Global under its new moniker Oliwka Covenant Technologies, said he was “not in a position to comment on the reasons for the account closures.”

“I was not personally involved in the banking relationship or the decisions made by the financial institutions,” he added.