SILVER OCEAN ENTERPRISES, S.R.L. (hereinafter – the company) is a limited liability company registered, established and incorporated under the laws of Costa Rica, under registration number 3-102-929414. The object of the company is to organize, market, promote, manage, support and operate all types of remote gaming activities, comprising of – all types of games, betting and other operation of betting exchange, interactive casinos, bingos, lotteries, poker and other interactive games.
The company holds an automatically renewable one-year sublicense granted by Government of the Autonomous Island of Anjouan, Union of Comoros allowing the operation of Games of Chance on the International market via service lines (via Internet) for the company’s online casino www.HiSpin.com.
In order to carry out activities in full compliance with the requirements of business ethics the company has developed a policy of "Anti-Money Laundering" with respect to the operation of www.HiSpin.com (hereinafter - the policy), which is based on the international best practices and standards, including the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations and the fourth European Union (EU) 2015/849 Directive on legal and regulatory requirements.
The purpose of this policy is to design and implement procedures and controls necessary to mitigate the risks for the company of being used in connection with money laundering and terrorism financing.
The Policy is approved by the company’s current director on the date written above on the very first page of the policy and is subject to annual revision, if necessary.
Money Laundering - the legalization of illicit income (acquisition, use, transfer or other action), as well as hiding or concealment of its true origin, owner or possessor and / or ownership rights and / or attempt to commit such an act;
Terrorism Financing - any transaction completed directly or indirectly, by any person, in any manner illegal and intentionally (regardless of amount of money) aimed at obtaining, or collecting funds that is aimed to use for financing terrorism and/or acts of terrorism. In some cases, it can be extended to legally obtained sources as well;
Illicit Income – illegal and/or undocumented property owned or possessed by a person;
Business relationship - a business, professional or commercial relationship between the company and a customer which arises out of the business of the company and is at the time when the contact is established. Such relationship occurs when customer registers cryptocurrency wallet account with the company;
Identification –obtaining such information on a customer that allows for distinguishing a person from others, if necessary.
Verification - verifying on the basis of documents or information the identification of the customer. Documents issued or made available by an official body are sufficient for the verification purpose.
Suspicious transaction – a transaction (irrespective of the amount and type of the transaction) with respect to which there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the transaction has been entered into or conducted for the purpose of illicit income legalization and/or that property (including funds), based on which the transaction has been entered into or conducted, has been obtained or originated from criminal activities, and/or that the transaction has been entered into or conducted for financing terrorism (a party to the transaction or the origin of the transaction amount is suspicious, or there are other grounds for which the transaction maybe considered suspicious), or that any party to the transaction is included in the list of terrorists or persons supporting terrorism and/or maybe related to them, and/or the amount involved in the transaction maybe related to or used for terrorism, terrorist acts, or by terrorists or terrorist organizations or by entities financing terrorism, or that the legal or actual address or place of residence of a party to the transaction is within a high risk country, or that the transaction amount is transferred to or from a high-risk country;
Politically Exposed Person - an individual who is entrusted with prominent public functions, other than middle ranking or more junior officials, including the following individuals:
The following individuals are also regarded as PEPs by virtue of their relationship or association with the individuals listed above:
To prevent money laundering and terrorism financing, the company has in place an effective internal control system, which consists of the following components:
This policy is the basis for internal control system, which defines the general principles for prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing, responsibilities and control mechanisms. In addition to this policy, the company has in place additional internal procedures, which define detailed control mechanisms.
The "Customer Due Diligence" procedure described in the section 7 of this policy is the integral part of this policy, which provides the basis for the identification, verification and ongoing monitoring process of the customers. In addition to this, the company has in place separate “Client Identification Procedure” and “Transaction Monitoring Procedure” which provides detailed operational instructions for establishing business relationship.
This policy is accessible for all employees and those third parties the company contracts with, if so requested by such third party, whereas operational procedures are only accessible for internal use.
The company appoints a chief executive officer as the officer responsible for oversight of the compliance with the requirements of this policy.
The company also appoints the employee or hires a respective outsource company responsible for control of money laundering (hereinafter - the responsible employee) whose responsibilities include the following:
Responsible employee has right to request and receive any information/documents from any employee of the company, which is needed for the execution of the above-mentioned functions.
In order to effectively perform his/her functions the company provides responsible employee all necessary resources, including appropriate technical and IT tools and commercial databases for secure storage of information, documentation and etc.
Along with the responsible employee, the efficiency of the money laundering control system is the responsibility of the company's chief executive officer. Also, implementing separate tools for controls is responsibility of those employees who are directly involved in establishing business relations with the customers.
For the purpose of establishment and maintenance of proportionate policies, procedures and controls to mitigate and manage money laundering and terrorist financing risk to which the company’s business is subject, it has developed effective risk management system.
The company takes appropriate steps to identify and assess the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing, taking into account the following risk factors:
The company assumes that some countries pose an inherently higher money laundering and terrorist financing risk than others. Country or geographical risk is defined according to the country of citizenship, residency or location of the customer. In order to determine that a country and customers from that country pose a higher risk, the company uses its own experience, as well as takes into account a variety of other credible sources of information, such as information available from FATF and nongovernmental organizations which can provide a useful guide to perceptions relating to corruption in the majority of countries.
The countries that are considered to have inherently higher money laundering and terrorist financing risk are listed in the Annex #1 of this policy. To determine the country or geographical risks of the customer the company obtains the information about the location of the customer through monitoring Internet protocol (IP) addresses used by the customer to access the gaming facilities of the company – www.HiSpin.com. The company shall also determine the citizenship and residency of the customer during the identification and verification process pursuant to the sections 7.1. and 7.2. of this policy. In case the customer is a citizen or a resident of, or its IP address is in one of the countries listed in the annex #1 of this policy, he/she is assigned high risk category and is subject of enhanced due diligence described in section 7.5 of this policy.
The risk related to the transactions is assigned to the customer according to the transactions, account activities, products, services and games he/she is involved in. The company considers above mentioned operational aspects that can be used to facilitate money laundering and terrorist financing.
The company has developed the following internal controls to mitigate the potential transaction risks:
The company monitors every transaction performed through crypto-wallet accounts of the customers. Transaction monitoring process enables the company to detect linked transactions, which are further analyzed and monitored. If, on the basis of this monitoring, high risk activity of the customer is identified, the company assigns the high-risk category to the customer and performs enhanced due diligence as described in section 7.5 of this policy.
Product of service risk includes the consideration of the features and characteristics of particular products and services offered by the company. The company assumes that some products and services may pose an inherently higher money laundering and terrorist financing risk than others. Such products and services include games where two or more persons place opposite, equivalent stakes on even, or close to even stakes.
The products and services with the above-mentioned features and characteristics, which are considered of higher risk, are subject to enhanced monitoring in order to detect the activities, where customers misuse certain games to transfer value by deliberately losing to the individual to whom they want to transfer funds.
The key requirement of this policy is to make identity checks on customers, known as customer due diligence or CDD.
The company applies CDD measures to the customers, if:
CDD measures consist of:
Where a person claims to act on behalf of a customer (such as an agent), the company:
The company identifies their customers by asking them for personal information, which may include name, home address and date of birth, or by using other sources of identity, such as:
The company may also obtain information from the customer on his/her occupation, source of funds and source of income. This information is used by the company in the ongoing monitoring process to assess about whether a customer’s level of gambling is proportionate to their approximate income, or whether it is suspicious.
Information about customer identity is verified through documents, data and information which are obtained from the customer through electronic means. In this process the company relies upon documents issued by an authoritative source that can be assessed against official and published guidance on identity documents. Only the documents issued by government departments and agencies that contain a photograph are considered reliable. If documents are in a foreign language, the company requests the customer to ensure a translation of the relevant sections.
The company obtains the confirmation of the customer’s address from the following sources:
In combination with document checks, the company also uses reliable electronic system as the method for verification. This system provides satisfactory evidence of identity by using data from multiple sources and across time, and incorporating qualitative checks that assess the strength of the information supplied.
Once the company identifies the customer pursuant to the principles of this policy, the company identifies whether a customer or his/her beneficial owner belongs to the category of Politically Exposed Persons in accordance with the definition provided in the section 2 of this policy. Information is obtained from the customer, as well as by screening customer’s name in the publicly available sources and/or dedicated commercial databases.
Where the company has determined that a customer or potential customer is a PEP, or a family member or known close associate of a PEP, the company:
Where an individual who was a PEP is no longer entrusted with a prominent public function, the company continues to apply the requirements for PEPs for a period of at least 12 months after the date on which the individual ceased to be entrusted with a public function.
The measures defined in this section is applicable only for those customers, which has been assigned low or medium risk category.
According to the SDD measures, the customer identification is performed based on identification information provided by the customer through the electronic channels of communication. When applying this method, the company obtains the following information about the customer at the moment of crypto-wallet account registration process:
When applying SDD it is not required to obtain the copy of the customer’s identification documents and verification of the identification data.
The company applies enhanced customer due diligence measures and enhanced ongoing monitoring, in addition to the required CDD measures, to manage and mitigate the money laundering or terrorist financing risks arising in the following cases:
These enhanced measures include:
Once the company identifies the customer pursuant to the principles of this policy, the company checks the name of the customer in the international sanction lists, which includes the following:
The company uses dedicated commercial databases for screening the names of the customers.
If there is a match with the sanctioned name, the process of establishing business relationship is stopped and the case is analyzed by the responsible employee. On the basis of analyses and additionally obtained information responsible employee decides how to proceed with the transaction/business relationship.
If any party involved in the transaction is on the list of terrorists the responsible employee should immediately inform senior management. In such cases the business relationship with the customer is terminated immediately and senior management decides to report the case to the relevant public authorities.
Where the company is unable to apply the required CDD measures in relation to a particular customer, the company:
Does not carry out a transaction with or for the customer through crypto-wallet account;
Does not establish a business relationship with the customer;
Terminates any existing business relationship with the customer.
Where the company is unable to complete required CDD measures in relation to a particular customer at the point the CDD threshold for transactions is reached, and is accordingly required to cease transactions or terminate the business relationship with the customer, the company adopts the following procedure:
If the refund is to be completed back to another account (whether partially or completely) the risk assessment of the transaction is conducted that takes into account information such as:
The company conducts ongoing monitoring of such cases and, if necessary, considers reporting of findings via relevant fraud monitoring services in the public and private sector.
The customers are made fully aware of the above-mentioned procedures when they first register with the company, so that there is no misunderstanding at a later stage.
The company has in place record keeping procedure to ensure that there is an audit trail that could assist in any financial investigation by a law enforcement body.
The company’s record keeping procedure covers records in the following areas relevant to this policy:
The company ensures that above listed information, documents and evidences of transactions will be preserved during five years since carrying out the transaction.
Information is recorded, systemized and filed in a way, that when needed it can be found and retrieved in a shortest period of time.
Taking into account the fact, that money laundering and financing of terrorism is often assisted by employees of gambling operators, the company uses intensified measures of identification of candidates in the recruitment process. In this process an important attention is paid to reputation, qualification and honesty of a candidate.
Each employee of the company, who is taking part in the process of establishing a business relationship with the customer is trained personally within one month from the moment of hiring and retrained annually. The responsible employee of the company participates in professional training at least annually. The training has an appropriate rank to raise an awareness of employee towards obligations defined by this policy.
The company ensures that relevant employees are aware of and understand:
If the company designs new products or services for customer or significantly changes existing products or services, before implementation of such changes, risk assessment of money laundering and financing of terrorism shall be carried out by the company. The responsible employee takes part in the process of risk assessment, whose recommendations shall be taken into account before the final approval of the design of product/service.
Risk evaluation of money laundering and financing of terrorism is also mandatory if the company considers the segmentation of services or use of intermediary company.