Fedlan Kılıçaslan portrays himself as a business visionary and philanthropist. Since relocating to Warsaw from Lviv four years ago, the 44-year-old Turkish entrepreneur has immediately made a splash in the Polish capital, driving a custom-built Ferrari with vanity plates, and having bought one of the city’s priciest apartments.
But driving his wealth are several online casinos that have triggered criminal investigations across multiple borders. This joint investigation was conducted by NGL.media in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, OCCRP, and the editorial offices of CIReN (Cyprus), Frontstory.pl and TVN (Poland).
From a manager to a mogul
Fedlan Kılıçaslan was born in the city of Balıkesir in northwestern Turkey but started his career in gambling in northern Cyprus.
Gambling is almost banned in Turkey since 1998, casinos in Turkey have been banned; since 2006, the ban has covered online betting as well. However, there is the state-run Turkish national lottery (Millî Piyango) and some private mediation websites which are bound to use its infrastructure, however, it is flourishing in northern Cyprus, occupied by Turkey in 1974. That’s where dozens of casinos operate, along with the companies running Turkish-language online sports betting sites and unlicensed gambling websites.
According to the results of the study, conducted by the Turkish Green Crescent Society last year, at least 10% of people over the age of 15 in Turkey had gambled once in their lives. Among those who had gambled within the 30 days prior to the survey, nearly 7% admitted to using illegal online betting sites.
44-year-old Fedlan Kılıçaslan is behind one of Europe’s largest illegal networks of online casinos and betting sites
The journalists of CIReN found that, having moved to northern Cyprus, at first, Fedlan Kılıçaslan worked as a waiter at a small cafe, and then started working at Arkin Ventures Ltd., running several hotels and casinos. According to the obtained data, from March 2011 to January 2014, he was a slot supervisor for Bumerang Travel Club Ltd., running a hotel and casino Cratos in the city of Kyrenia.
Corporate documents and licences show that Kılıçaslan was involved in online gambling at least since 2016, under the brand name of BetExpress, for which he registered at least two sites, specifying his own name and contact data. Kılıçaslan’s page on the Russian social network, VKontakte, also states BetExpress as his place of employment, with the note – “the boss”.
A call-centre and apartments in Lviv
However, soon he had problems with Turkish law enforcement bodies and decided to move his operations to Ukraine. According to YouControl data, in 2018, Fedlan Kılıçaslan became the owner of two Ukrainian companies – Usman Trading and New Federer (now Advice House Plus) with a long list of kinds of activity, from software engineering to call-centres.
It looks like he liked Lviv the most, where in 2020 he bought an apartment in a prestigious residential complex, Parus. The following year, he bought one more apartment in another Lviv’s RC Avalon, and a Mercedes-Benz G-Class G 63 AMG. Judging by the documents at the disposal of NGL.media, Fedlan Kılıçaslan paid over UAH 3 mln just for apartments.
It is unknown what exactly his company, Usman Trading, was doing, but the financial reports show losses. At the same time, there is much more information about another Kılıçaslan’s company, New Federer.
In 2021, New Federer applied for two trademarks. One of them was for the MeritKing logo, targeted by the Turkish authorities in their pursuit of Kılıçaslan. The other logo was for the sports-betting platform, called Euromatch.
The activity of New Federer soon attracted the attention of the Security Service of Ukraine. The SSU investigators had reasons to suspect that New Federer call-centre employees were involved in fraud. They called both citizens of Turkey and Ukraine, offering them to make money on gambling, but after receiving the finances, they just took it and stopped all communication.
It is known that in April 2022, the court gave a permit for the search of New Federer office. Pursuant to NGL.media’s inquiry, the SSU said that in August of the same year they transferred the case to the National Police, which only confirmed that the investigation of this case is currently ongoing. The law enforcement bodies refused to explain in which status Fedlan Kılıçaslan is involved in this case and whether he features in it at all.
Instead, in 2023, as reported by the Turkish media, there was a video on social networks, showing the search of Fedlan Kılıçaslan’s hotel room by the Ukrainian police. This video was posted by Murat Tibuk, the son of Besim Tibuk, the owner of the largest chain of Merit hotels and casinos in northern Cyprus Merit chain is also under active development in Montenegro, Croatia, and Bulgaria. In Ukraine, Besim Tibuk is the ultimate beneficial owner of Merit Ukraine LLC. NGL.media failed to identify the location of the search or get a confirmation of the very fact of the search from the law enforcement bodies.
It is no mere chance that Besim Tibuk takes interest in Fedlan Kılıçaslan’s activity. The matter is: the court case of his illegal use of Merit brand had been going on for over eight years. And Kılıçaslan acted especially recklessly – in 2024, he even signed a sponsorship agreement with the most famous Turkish football club, Galatasaray, the players of which came onto the field wearing T-shirts with MeritKing.news logo, related to its illegal betting websites, MeritKing. There was a huge scandal and under public pressure and legal claims, the sponsorship agreement worth USD 14 mln had to be broken.
The proxy owner
In August 2022, New Federer changed its name to Advice House Plus and got re-registered from Lviv to Hola Prystan in the Kherson region, occupied by the Russians.
Instead of Fedlan Kılıçaslan, the official ownership was registered for a Ukrainian man with several previous convictions, caught buying psychotropic materials and involved in robbery. It turned out that he was an official founder of 348 companies, and the director of 420 more, including the ones that suspended their activity, according to the YouControl data.
NGL.media managed to talk to him at the detention centre, where he is held now for involvement in another case. In his words, he was paid UAH 1,000 for each company, registered in his name, and he doesn’t remember the name of Fedlan Kılıçaslan.
In December 2023, the surname of the restless Turkish man appeared in the Ukrainian court records again, this time in Kyiv, where the Pecherskyi district court reviewed a Turkish request for information on “procedural actions”, related to Kılıçaslan. NGL.media confirmed that the Kyiv court forwarded records based on the request but it was unable to confirm their contents or their recipient.
Life in a grand style
It looks like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made Fedlan Kılıçaslan relocate to another country again. This time, he moved to Poland. By the time the Turkish prosecutor’s office announced a warrant for his arrest in November 2025, he had already managed to attract the attention of the local public.
In particular, many noticed the purchase of an enormous apartment in the glimmering Złota 44 high-rise in central Warsaw by his company, FAF Global. The procurement of an apartment of 485 sq.m. on the top floor of the highest residential building in the EU cost Fedlan EUR 7 mln. Against this background, there can hardly be any talk about the purchase of a custom-built Ferrari with the vanity plates.
Warsaw’s skyline, a residential high-rise Złota 44 in the centre (a photo by Patrick Michalski)
Last February, Kılıçaslan also appeared at the opening of an amusement park in a shopping centre of Lodz next to the city mayor, Anna Zdanowska, and a Turkish businessman, currently suspected of trying to bribe the mayor of another Polish Lodz mayor Zdanowska’s office told Frontstory.pl that the mayor was a guest at the event and “had no influence over the guest list nor knowledge of the roles in which individual guests participated in the event. The Turkish businessman said Kılıçaslan had no connection to the project and that he likes to invite all Turkish citizens based in Poland to his events.
After that, Kılıçaslan virtually vanished from the public eye in Poland. In November 2025, the Istanbul’s prosecutor’s office announced a warrant for his arrest on suspicion of facilitating and advertising illegal betting and gambling operations. That triggered an Interpol Red Notice Red Notice orders the arrest of the suspect.
Istanbul prosecutors specifically cited five digital platforms they linked to Kılıçaslan, all featuring variants of the brand name “MeritKing”. This was the very name, registered by his Ukrainian company as a trademark for MeritKing logo, seen on the illegal websites.
Turkish authorities have played digital whack-a-mole to block these sites, which routinely pop-up elsewhere under slightly altered web domains. Meanwhile, Kılıçaslan’s Warsaw-based firm, FAF Global Company promoted them to Turkish-speaking clients, reporters found.
A former FAF Global employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters that the firm was used to promote MeritKing, as well as two other gambling sites banned in Turkey that operate under the brands MadridBet and KingRoyal
He also said that whenever Turkish authorities blocked one of the domains, a new one with a similar name would be immediately created. FAF Global employees would then allegedly notify customers of the new address via SMS, and messengers like Telegram and WhatsApp.
A review of betting sites blocked by Turkish authorities shows that more than 100 variants of MadridBet and MeritKing were banned between 2018 and 2023. The banned betting sites merely changed the numbers in the name of the website and registered a new one.
For instance, in 2018, Turkey banned the domain MadridBet10.com. By 2023, the number appended to mirror sites had risen by more than 500, with Turkish authorities banning MadridBet569.com. That number went up to at least 940, according to internal messages related to MadridBet that reporters reviewed.
During a visit to FAF Global’s Warsaw offices late last year, a reporter from TVN’s Superwizjer observed an employee’s computer screen showing the MeritKing website with the same logo previously registered by Kılıçaslan’s Ukrainian firm, which is now owned by a proxy owner.
Marketing without any permits
It is illegal under Polish law to promote or advertise gambling in Poland without a license, it is punishable by a fine. When confronted with findings, Utku Sarper, the CEO of FAF Global, insisted in an interview in April that its business in Poland was legal, saying the company provides services to gambling platforms, including telephone marketing. When asked about Merit King and King Royal websites, he said they are “run by our clients, and they have licenses to operate them.”
“We provide services to these clients…They give us a list of users, and we provide the service of calling them or making outbound calls for marketing purposes. So it’s about marketing certain products,” Sarper said.
However, reporters found that two of the gambling sites are licensed in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of the Comoros, and one of its autonomously governed islands, Anjouan – permits that are not recognized by EU regulators.
Advertising and promoting gambling without permits from the Finance Ministry is prohibited in Poland, according to Dominika Bura, a Warsaw-based lawyer.
“If it is confirmed that the company carried out marketing activities, including outbound calls aimed at acquiring or retaining users of brands such as MeritKing or KingRoyal, we are dealing with a potential violation of the Fiscal Penal Code,” Bura said.
A month after the interview with its CEO, FAF Global was renamed Oliwka Covenant Technologies, and the company said it has “no business relationship” with MeritKing, MadridBet, or KingRoyal.”
Now the official owner of Oliwka Covenant Technologies via another Polish company, Euromatch Group, is Semih Saçlı, a US citizen and a Polish resident. By last June, the owner of Euromatch Group was Fedlan Kılıçaslan only. Semih Saçlı told journalists that it was he who approached Kılıçaslan with an offer to buy Euromatch Group from him. He also assured that Kılıçaslan had “no role” in the company and “no involvement” in its current operations.
After the change of the owner, Oliwka Covenant Technologies told reporters that it is making a “strategic transition toward the Euromatch brand,” and that the company’s client portfolio is “under active review.”
Spanish arrest
On March 24, 2026, Fedlan Kılıçaslan was arrested in Barcelona on two charges of sexual assault. A Spanish court spokesperson confirmed that the Turkish authorities had been informed about his arrest. They also confiscated his passport to prevent him from leaving the country.
Another of Kılıçaslan’s companies, Fedcel Group, had been operating in Barcelona since 2024. A year earlier, he had registered a call center in neighboring Portugal. It is noteworthy that the listed director of Fedcel Group is Semih Saçlı, the same man who allegedly bought Kılıçaslan’s Polish companies.
Semih Saçlı (a photo by TVN)
There is an ongoing Polish money-laundering investigation involving Fedlan Kılıçaslan and his related business entities, as confirmed by the spokesperson of the Warsaw circuit prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor’s office refused to provide any details, citing the ongoing probe, but a source in law enforcement bodies said that Kılıçaslan’s personal bank accounts and those of FAF Global had been blocked.
Semih Saçlı, who now owns FAF Global under its new name, Oliwka Covenant Technologies, said he was “not in a position to comment on the reasons for the account closures.” “I was not personally involved in the banking relationship or the decisions made by the financial institutions,” he added.
It should be reminded that the Ukrainian police also conducts a pre-trial investigation on Kılıçaslan’s Ukrainian company, New Federer, pursuant to part 4, Art. 190 of the CC (large-scale fraud).
Fedlan Kılıçaslan neither answered any questions sent to FAF Global last December nor responded to the request for an interview in May. He gave no response to the questions sent in June to his personal e-mail addresses and to his lawyer, representing his companies.
Text Oleksandra Hubytska (NGL.media), Daniel Flis and Alicja Pawlowska (FRONTSTORY.PL), Turgut Denizgil and Esra Aygin (CIReN), Elena Loginova (OCCRP), Michal Fuja (TVN); editor of the Ukrainian version Oleh Onysko, translation Nelya Plakhota, cover Viktoria Demchuk
