Cosenza investigators impose precautionary measures on 15 in gaming case

Carabinieri from the Cosenza provincial command and staff from Italy's Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM) carried out precautionary measures against 15 people on 26 October 2026, under an order issued by the judge for preliminary investigations at the Court of Cosenza at the request of the Cosenza public prosecutor's office. Two of those concerned were placed under house arrest, six received non-custodial measures and seven were barred from carrying out gaming activity for one year. The measures concern alleged offences that remain at the preliminary investigation stage and are subject to later judicial review in adversarial proceedings with the defence.

The order was adopted on the basis of serious indications of guilt for offences alleged in various capacities, including criminal association aimed at committing offences against the public administration, against property and against the administration of justice, as well as corruption for acts contrary to official duties, disclosure and use of official secrets, aggravated fraud against the state and aiding and abetting. According to the reconstruction at the precautionary stage, the alleged conduct involved cloning gaming machine cards to avoid the single tax levy (PREU) on amounts wagered. The investigation began with an analysis by the ADM's Rome central directorate gaming control office of telematic flows and collection meters, which found anomalies in the gaming volumes of numerous amusement-with-prize (AWP) machines.

During the preliminary investigation, checks were carried out at numerous commercial premises in various municipalities of the province of Cosenza by ADM control office staff with the operational support of the Carabinieri. As a result, 145 machines were seized on the hypothesis that a double or tampered card had been used, along with about €80,000 found inside the machines. On 6 November 2025, the judge for preliminary investigations at the Court of Cosenza, at the prosecutor's request, ordered the preventive seizure, including by equivalent value, of financial resources, assets and other utilities for an amount of more than €12m from an operator in the management of telematic gaming machines with cash winnings, on the alleged hypothesis of embezzlement concerning PREU sums on amounts collected from bets.

The investigation describes the alleged system as involving a second, cloned card placed alongside the regular card connected to the state telematic network, with wireless remote controls, modified wiring, timers or monitor switches diverting play to the illegal card. Clone devices of official smart cards were allegedly used to prevent automatic blocking of machines for failure to communicate with the network, and physical anti-tampering sensors were reportedly blocked with glue or ties. The precautionary order also sets out the alleged roles of other participants, including a supplier providing altered gaming cards, cloned smart cards, electronic components and technical support, and people in the operational technical network handling maintenance, installation, management, removal, restoration and concealment of altered equipment.

According to the order, the alleged association's defining element at the level of circumstantial gravity is a corrupt agreement between the entrepreneur in the slot machine distribution sector and a reference official at the ADM office in Cosenza. In exchange for periodic sums of money, the official allegedly disclosed in advance the dates, times and targets of scheduled inspections, allowing illegal cards to be hidden and lawful mode temporarily restored, and allegedly removed from the ADM Cosenza office stores sealed boxes containing previously seized AWP cards, handing them to the entrepreneur and a trusted technician so they could be formatted, reset and returned to the market. The order was also adopted for corruption and disclosure offences against the ADM official, for aggravated fraud against the state against participants in the association and against operators, managers or others with availability of premises and machines that allowed altered AWP devices to be installed and operated, and for aiding and abetting. The criminal proceedings are currently at the preliminary investigation stage.