\n<\/p>\n
Black Cube landed a series of six-figure payouts related to its role in sparking a regulatory investigation into online gaming group Evolution, according to new court filings that shed light on the inner workings of the controversial intelligence firm.<\/p>\n
The fee structure and tactics employed by Black Cube, a secretive operation founded in 2011 by veterans of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, have been thrust into the open by a spat between two of Europe\u2019s largest gambling companies.<\/p>\n
Black Cube was hired in 2021 by London-listed Playtech, which sells technology to many of the world\u2019s leading gambling companies. Playtech tasked the intelligence firm with investigating whether its Stockholm-based rival Evolution, which specialises in online casino games, was operating in prohibited markets.<\/p>\n
In a deposition transcript contained in court filings submitted by Evolution at New Jersey\u2019s Superior Court on Monday, Black Cube director and co-founder Avi Yanus explained that the firm received an initial \u00a3400,000 fee from Playtech to cover three months of research.<\/p>\n
Playtech tasked the intelligence firm with investigating whether Evolution, which specialises in online casino games, was operating in prohibited markets<\/span> \u00a9 Louisa Svensson\/Alamy<\/span><\/p>\n Black Cube operatives approached Evolution executives while posing as gambling industry investors or prospective business operators and surreptitiously recorded their conversations, over the course of an investigation that ran from 2021 to 2024.<\/p>\n Evolution\u2019s former US commercial director, Jeff Millar, described in an affidavit how Black Cube operatives secured a meeting with him by claiming to work for a fake firm called Parvus Capital, constructing \u201ca fake website, fake email addresses, and fake identities\u201d. <\/p>\n The bulk of Black Cube\u2019s fees typically come from pre-agreed goals set out in a letter of engagement with a client.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I built the business almost 15 years ago, it was extremely important to me that we will work in a very accurate and ordinary way,\u201d Yanus said in the deposition. \u201cThe letter of engagement details\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009all the payments, when they should be paid, what are the amounts. Everything is crystal clear.\u201d <\/p>\n In its work for Playtech, led by chief executive Mor Weizer, Black Cube earned its first success fee of \u00a3150,000 for bringing evidence of Evolution\u2019s alleged wrongdoing. <\/p>\n Black Cube\u2019s investigation provided the basis for a complaint made by law firm Calcagni & Kanefsky to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement in 2021, alleging that Evolution was operating illegally in some markets and in countries under US sanctions. Evolution said previously that the report contained false claims.<\/p>\n Black Cube earned its next fee when details of the law firm\u2019s complaint were published by Bloomberg News in November 2021. <\/p>\n The story \u2014 described by Yanus in his deposition as \u201ca beautiful piece of article in Bloomberg\u201d \u2014 earned Black Cube \u00a3175,000. Shares in Stockholm-based Evolution tumbled 30 per cent in the week after the article was published.<\/p>\n Black Cube\u2019s work for Playtech was made public last month by Evolution in a revelation that sparked a roughly 25 per cent drop in the FTSE 250 company\u2019s shares.<\/p>\n The intelligence firm \u2014 which has offices in Tel Aviv, London, Madrid and Singapore \u2014 has attracted attention for its work on behalf of controversial clients. <\/p>\n These include disgraced filmmaker Harvey Weinstein \u2014 who hired the firm in 2016 as he sought to counter allegations of sexual assaults he committed \u2014 and mining tycoon Beny Steinmetz, who was sentenced to five years in jail for bribery in 2021. The Israeli billionaire is appealing against the conviction.<\/p>\n Shares in Playtech, led by CEO Mor Weizer, plummeted after it was revealed that it had hired Black Cube<\/span> \u00a9 Simon Dawson\/Bloomberg<\/span><\/p>\n In 2016, Black Cube operatives in Romania hacked email accounts belonging to associates of anti-corruption prosecutor Laura Codru\u021ba K\u00f6vesi. A number of its operatives were charged in relation to the operation.<\/p>\n The firm\u2019s website states that \u201cwinning isn\u2019t everything \u2014 it\u2019s the only thing\u201d.<\/p>\n In 2021, Adrian Leppard, a former police officer who has joined Black Cube\u2019s advisory board, said that under its new ethics rules the firm would not take on cases involving sexual harassment, or from clients who were violent criminals. <\/p>\n Recommended<\/p>\n Leppard said the firm complied with the law in every country it operates in and no longer uses offensive cyber techniques such as computer hacking.<\/p>\n Black Cube\u2019s largest success fee from Playtech, totalling \u00a3350,000, was earned when its findings prompted the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement to open its own investigation into Evolution.<\/p>\n A New Jersey judge said in September that, \u201cviewed through the lens\u201d of the Division of Gaming Enforcement which looked into it, the report based on Black Cube\u2019s dossier was \u201cobjectively baseless\u201d. The regulator\u2019s probe was closed in 2024. Black Cube was allocated a \u00a3500,000 award conditional on Evolution\u2019s licence being revoked, none of which was paid.<\/p>\n Evolution said in previous filings that Playtech had paid Black Cube a total of more than \u00a31.8mn for its work.<\/p>\n Black Cube did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its fees from Playtech, but the intelligence firm previously told the Financial Times it \u201cproudly submitted its findings in co-ordination with its client\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe extensive body of evidence, including countless hours of video and audio recordings, leaves no room for doubt: Evolution knowingly and deliberately allowed its games to operate in sanctioned jurisdictions and black markets,\u201d Black Cube said.<\/p>\n Playtech said that \u201cthere has been no ruling that the allegations in the Black Cube report are false. Black Cube testified, just days ago, that Evolution continues to operate in sanctioned markets even in October 2025. Playtech welcomes court examination of the report and is confident the truth will prevail\u201d.<\/p>\n Evolution said that its latest filing \u201cfurther confirms that the allegations against Evolution are false, and that the so-called evidence, including video evidence, offered by Black Cube is inaccurate, selective and misleading.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Black Cube landed a series of six-figure payouts related to its role in sparking a regulatory investigation into online gaming group Evolution, according to new court filings that shed light on the inner workings of the controversial intelligence firm. The fee structure and tactics employed by Black Cube, a secretive operation founded in 2011 by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[8162,3630,1466,1443,4893,18600],"class_list":{"0":"post-32138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-client","9":"tag-fees","10":"tag-firm","11":"tag-intelligence","12":"tag-notorious","13":"tag-rakes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}