A tech-savvy Finnish teenager who defrauded a Malta-based online casino out of €138,000 was given on Monday a suspended sentence of one year and eight months, local news outlet Yle reported. The young man’s parents were charged with money laundering and were too slapped with suspended sentences.
All three sentences are yet to be enforced as the defendants have the right to appeal the court’s rulings, Yle added in a Monday article on the topic.
As Casino News Daily reported last month citing Yle, the observant teen was found to have spotted and exploited a technical glitch at an unnamed online casino, based and licensed in Malta. The gaming operation’s system was set up to allow customers to cancel the return of their funds and to receive their refund into an online wallet or their bank accounts.
The young individual, who hails from Forssa, Finland, opened an account with the casino using fake information, more specifically a fake date of birth, and was reportedly able to take advantage of the technical bug for over a month. Over the course of that period, he managed to transfer more than €138,000 in casino funds into his personal bank account.
According to prosecutors, the teenager, who was aged 16 at the time, managed to carry out 417 transactions in the period between April and May 2017. The fraud was discovered by an employee of the casino in July 2017.
Teenager’s Parents Found Guilty of Money Laundering
The teenager, now aged 18, appeared Monday before the Häme District Court to hear his sentence. He was charged with aggravated fraud as a minor and was given a suspended sentence of one year and eight months. He will also have to pay back the €138,000 he transferred from the casino and to cover the casino owner’s legal fees of €3,000.
The teenager’s parents were, too, found to have been involved in their son’s actions. According to court filings, investigators have found €14,500 in money transferred from the casino in the bank account of the young man’s father. The parent was slapped yesterday with a suspended sentence of five months for aggravated money laundering.
The teenager’s mother was given a more lenient 60-day suspended sentence for money laundering after she was discovered to have been transferred €2,300 from the stolen money into her personal bank account and to have been in possession of a €5,000 motorcycle believed to have been obtained with a portion of the stolen money. She was also ordered to repay the ill-gotten gains.
As mentioned above, all three defendants will be able to appeal the charges and sentences. It is yet to be seen whether they would indeed appeal the court’s ruling from yesterday.
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