Einar Bredo Johansen, former head of operations in Norway for Scandinavia's leading gambling company, Betsson, is named in the Curaçao Gaming Authority filings as the owner and CEO of K8, Atlético de Madrid’s illegal betting sponsor. K8's office in Makati, Philippines, was raided by local police last year.
By Philippe Auclair, with additional reporting by Lars Johnsen, Jack Kerr, Sam Kunti, Steve Menary and Matthijs van Dam.
There are few more prestigious addresses in Makati City, the Philippines’s main financial hub, than the RCBC Plaza and its Yuchengco Tower, which soars nearly 200 metres over Ayala Avenue. This is where the Taiwanese consulate and the embassies of Australia, Canada and South Africa to the Philippines can be found. The Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation has its Manila branch there, on the 21st floor, where their neighbours used to include the Flying Future Company.
"Used to" as, on 19 March 2025, Filipino police raided Flying Future's office and arrested "around 200 people of various nationalities", according to local news website Rappler. The Yuchengco Tower was the den of an illegal "POGO" hub. Diplomats and bankers were unknowingly working in the same building as staff employed by Asian-facing betting operators whose licences had been revoked by presidential decree a few months previously.
Josimar examined footage and photographs taken by the polic...
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