Anti-Financial Crime & Financial Crime Compliance
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EU/Europe

Austrian anti-corruption authorities search home of country’s finance minister as gambling industry probe leads to the highest levels of government

The investigation is part of a wider probe that started with the 2019 Ibiza affair, or Ibiza-gate scandal, that led to the collapse of a previous coalition government between Kurz’s conservatives and the far-right Freedom Party then led by Heinz-Christian Strache.

By Vish Gain for AMLi

THE HOUSE of Austria’s finance minister was searched by federal anti-corruption authorities last week after his suspected involvement in a long and elaborate bribery scandal connected to the country’s powerful gambling industry.

Gernot Blümel, a close ally of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, was named by the Office of the Prosecutor for Economic Affairs and Corruption (WKStA) as a suspect in the ongoing probe into the Austrian government’s questionable relationship with Novomatic, one of the world’s largest gambling companies.

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