Eswatini gambling probe widens into organised crime and international fraud case

What started as an illegal gambling and immigration crackdown in Eswatini has turned into a much broader case, with police telling the High Court that investigators are now looking at alleged links to politicians, officials, cryptocurrency transfers and an international fraud network. For PSPs and acquirers, the useful part is simple: this is the kind of case where gambling, fraud, crypto and cross-border payment flows all end up in the same file.

1. Detective Constable Ntokozo Dlamini of the Organised Crime Unit filed an affidavit saying the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) has expanded the inquiry into an international fraud and organised crime probe. Telegram and WhatsApp material recovered from seized devices allegedly pointed to links between the criminal enterprise and senior politicians, police officials and immigration officials.
2. The court papers say more than 400 electronic devices are under forensic examination, with assistance from INTERPOL. INTERPOL’s public account of the case, released under Operation First Light 2026, cites 240 devices seized and 82 people arrested in the specific highlighted Eswatini action.
3. Police say the devices were taken during coordinated raids on premises in Mbabane and Ezulwini earlier in 2026, including Castle Hotel in Mbabane. Officers say the hotel served as one of the syndicate’s principal command centres.
4. The investigation began as a domestic illegal gambling and immigration case. REPS raided several sites in and around Mbabane in March 2026, arresting 146 foreign nationals, many of them Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Cambodian and Brazilian. Police seized 313 electronic devices during that first phase, and the suspects face charges under the Gaming Control Act, the Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (Prevention) Act and the Immigration Act.
5. According to Dlamini, extracted material shows an organised operation targeting victims in Brazil and India while running unlicensed online gambling platforms from Eswatini. Investigators say the syndicate pooled proceeds and converted them into cryptocurrency, chiefly USDT, before routing them through financial institutions in Abu Dhabi and the United States and back into Eswatini.
6. The wider probe also uncovered an impersonation scam. Investigators found what appeared to be a fake Brazilian police holding facility at Castle Hotel, complete with Brazilian police uniforms, a bulletproof vest, five communication radios and a Brazilian Federal Police badge. Members of the network allegedly posed as Brazilian Federal Police officers during video calls, pressured targets to sign fraudulent “confidentiality agreements”, and told them to transfer money to accounts supposedly held by the Brazilian Central Bank for “safekeeping”.

INTERPOL identified approximately 40 Brazilian citizens as victims of the operation. For high-risk payment businesses, the pattern is familiar: unlicensed gambling, mule-like payment routing, crypto conversion and document-based social engineering all moving through the same cross-border setup.