Turkish prosecutors froze 6,314 bank accounts held at 32 banks as the 2026 FIFA World Cup final kicked off on 19 July, in an operation aimed at the payment networks that move money for illegal betting sites.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said cybercrime investigators had identified the accounts before the match and sent freeze instructions to all 32 banks at once, timing the block to the moment the final began.
The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office ran the operation through its Illegal Betting and Sports Crimes Investigation Bureau, a specialist unit it established in June, working with cybercrime officers from the İstanbul Provincial Police Department.
Timing the freeze to the final
Prosecutors said they delayed the freeze until the match started so investigators could monitor the network through the tournament and then block transfers at the point of heaviest activity.
The accounts were registered in the names of various individuals and used to receive and move money linked to unlicensed betting platforms, according to the prosecutor’s office. Cybercrime police identified them through technical analysis, field intelligence and an artificial intelligence-assisted system the office named AVCI.
Gürlek described the sequence:
“Within the scope of the operation, 6,314 bank accounts used in illegal betting transactions were identified. As the final match began, simultaneous orders were sent to banks to immediately freeze these accounts.”
Nineteen payment houses and 23 suspects
Investigators also identified 19 locations that Gürlek described as external finance houses. The prosecutor’s office said they were used to collect betting proceeds, manage bank accounts and cards, and move money between accounts tied to the platforms.
Police raided the 19 sites and detained 16 people. Prosecutors opened proceedings against 23 suspects in total and said efforts to locate the remaining seven were continuing.
Where the money was moving
Investigators said illegal betting networks in Turkey rely on offshore platforms, payment intermediaries, bank accounts registered to third parties and cryptocurrency transfers. That structure is what the account freeze targets: the mule accounts sitting between the player and the offshore operator.
The $50 billion projection
Figures cited by the prosecutor’s office put illegal betting on the 2022 World Cup at an estimated $35 billion, with the 2026 tournament projected to reach $50 billion. The office did not identify the source or the methodology behind either figure, so both read as enforcement estimates rather than measured handle.
They land in a market where the scale of unlicensed play is contested everywhere. The Global Coalition for Illegal Gambling reported $5.9 trillion in unregulated online gambling turnover for 2025, a number the licensed industry cites regularly and one built on modelling rather than transaction data.
Gambling is tightly restricted in Turkey, where only state-authorised betting and lottery products are legal. Ankara has spent the past year widening the legal tools available to enforcement agencies, including bank-level controls on accounts suspected of processing bets.
The football scandal behind the campaign
The operation sits inside a broader campaign that began with football. The Turkish Football Federation started investigating allegations of betting by referees in October 2025. The inquiry expanded to players, club executives and other officials, with hundreds referred to disciplinary boards and dozens facing criminal investigation.
Two days before the final, police detained 17 club officials, including executives at İstanbul clubs Galatasaray and Beşiktaş, over allegations that they placed bets while holding official positions.
Where the pressure lands next
The İstanbul prosecutor’s office said its investigation into the accounts and the suspected payment centres is continuing, which leaves the seven outstanding suspects and any further account tranches open.
For offshore operators taking Turkish players, the enforcement pressure has shifted from domain blocking to the banking rails, and the individuals who lend their names to mule accounts now carry criminal exposure of their own. Other jurisdictions are testing the same channel: Greece has opened a consultation on reforms aimed at its black market, with payment blocking among the measures under review. The Turkish operation gives regulators elsewhere a working template and a set of numbers to argue from.
Source: İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office
