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Online gambling tycoon Calvin Ayre controlled many of the third-party entities that were supposed to hold funds for the now-defunct, disgraced German payments company Wirecard and used them to launder illegal gambling proceeds, a report from the German television program Tagesschau alleges. (Tagesschau)
Talking point: Wirecard collapsed in 2020 after its CEO was charged in connection with what has been called the biggest accounting fraud in European history, with prosecutors alleging the firm cooked the books to inflate its revenue. Ayre pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour charge related to transmitting gambling information in 2017, resolving a years-long U.S. money laundering and illegal gambling investigation into him and his company Bodog. Ayre is infamous in crypto circles for allegedly funding computer scientist Craig Wright’s failed lawsuits against Bitcoin developers and founders—including some employed by Canada’s Blockstream—who denied Wright’s claims that he is pseudonymous Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright has denied Ayre bankrolled the lawsuits. Ayre did not respond to a request for comment.
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