Poker Writer
Turkish businessman Fedlan Kilicaslan is wanted in multiple countries, and he’s been connected to an alleged illegal gambling operation. The eye-catching story broken by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) implicates a mogul who has built a front as a visionary and philanthropist.
The 44-year-old Kilicaslan has become a big shot in the Polish capital of Warsaw. He drives flashy cars and lives in a pricey city apartment. He is the founder and chairman of Akif Capital, a Warsaw-based investment firm focused on “long-term value creation on a global scale.” His firm’s website promotes Kilicaslan as “one of the most dynamic financial leaders in Central and Eastern Europe.”
But his time in the sun may be dwindling. Authorities revealed that he may be behind telemarketing for blacklisted online gambling sites, if not outright running them himself. Additionally, Spanish police have arrested him on two charges of sexual assault. And investigators in Poland are looking into him as part of a money-laundering investigation.
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Kilicaslan Connected to Scandals All Around Europe
The Turkish mogul is now wanted by several authorities across Europe. While Polish authorities clamp down on the gambling and money laundering allegations, Spain has banned him from leaving the country after an arrest on unrelated sexual assault charges in March 2026.
They confiscated his passport, according to the OCCRP report. However, the report did not note his current whereabouts, saying only that Kilicaslan has “vanished from the public eye.”
Prosecutors in his home country of Turkey are also seeking to charge him for illegal digital platforms connected to a company he owned. They issued a warrant for his arrest in November 2025. The Turkish authorities have struggled to keep tabs on all of the sites and web domains through the years.
Turkey has sought to crack down hard against illegal gambling in recent months. Led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the heavily Muslim nation has increased its enforcement on that front. It dealt with a high-profile sports betting scandal that permeated its soccer leagues and included stakeholders at every level, including players and referees.
Meanwhile, in Poland, authorities also sought to stop the illegal promotion. Polish law is very strict against promoting or advertising illegal gambling. Authorities there have reportedly frozen his bank accounts in the country.
Killicaslan even had a call center registered in Portugal.
How the Illegal Betting Sites Operated in Europe
The illegal operation of these sites works thanks to a near-constant rebrand, enabling operators to skirt domain blocks. Turkish authorities would block one illegal domain name, only to find that others immediately popped up to replace it. The domains always had slightly altered names, which could also mask the fact that they were involved with illegal betting at all.
For example, more than 100 variants of MadridBet and MeritKing emerged between 2018 and 2023, each eventually banned by authorities. The number of sites with MadridBet in the name seemed endless, reaching as high as at least 940.
The sites were connected to Kilicaslan via trademarks registered to a company he owned in Ukraine.
Polish company FAF Global, owned by Euromatch (AKIF Capital) and allegedly tied to Kilicaslan, circumvented strict Polish laws on gambling promotion. The CEO of FAF Global claimed that the company simply provided services to clients where it is legal to operate under a license. But further investigation revealed that the “license” that these sites had was tied back to the island nation of Comoros in the Indian Ocean, which is not an officially recognized avenue by the EU.
FAF Global denied any current connection to Kilicaslan and claimed to have no current business relationship with the illegal betting sites attributed to him.
