Chiquito Western

What is Chiquito Western?

The ARGN’s work will focus on four key strategic priorities:

Lebo Seoheng, advocacy and communications manager at the South African Responsible Gaming Foundation, has been appointed as the ARGN’s president.

Seoheng said the network’s launch comes as Africa’s online gambling market continues to expand, marking stronger player protection and responsible gambling measures increasingly important.

What is Chiquito Western?

It finds that online gaming shows more documented terrorist financing activity than gambling, although proliferation financing risks remain limited across both sectors.

Cash, e-wallets, mobile money and virtual assets emerge as the payment methods most vulnerable to abuse. This is particularly true where operators use them to structure deposits below reporting thresholds. 

Giles Thomson, FATF president, said unregulated sectors risk becoming “attractive gateways for fraudsters, professional money launderers and organised criminal networks”. He called on governments to strengthen oversight, crack down on illegal and offshore operators and deepen public-private cooperation. 

About Chiquito Western

Notably, the Spectrum report does acknowledge that Evolution did not knowingly allow games in prohibited territories, however, it has also flagged a number of compliance issues, which resulted in its games being provided in markets where online gambling is, or has been, prohibited.

Here are some of the dossier’s key findings, some of which raise questions around Evolution’s compliance operations during the period assessed.

Within the initial pages of its lengthy August 2021 report, Spectrum Gaming explains it carried out an extensive technical, operational and compliance review of Evolution’s “business practices, public record database research and an assessment of the company’s anti-money laundering compliance procedures and processes, as they related to the allegations contained in the ‘anonymous report'”.