Curaçao Probes €4m Payments to Firm Run by Ex-MGA Chief

Curaçao has opened an investigation into payments made to a consultancy run by former Malta Gaming Authority chief Mario Galea, after Finance Minister Charles Cooper claimed the firm was receiving more than €4 million a year from the government.

Read more Cricket

The figure is now disputed.

Cooper said Random Consulting Limited was being paid 8.3 million Caribbean guilders annually for its work on Curaçao’s online gambling sector. He also linked the alleged payments to the public finances, saying the amount represented more than 35% of funds entering the government treasury.

The finance minister said he would investigate the payments together with Curaçao’s justice minister.

Random Consulting has challenged the calculation, arguing that the figure attributed to the company is wrong. Curaçao media have also suggested Cooper may have confused the consultancy’s payments with the wider budget allocated to the Curaçao Gaming Authority.

Questions sent to Cooper seeking clarification had not been answered when the report was published.

The numbers do not match

Random Consulting says it received €3.4 million in total between 2022 and 2025, rather than more than €4 million every year.

Its reported figures vary sharply. The company received no payment in 2023 and €2.5 million in 2025, it said.

Its filed accounts provide another reference point. Random Consulting reported revenue of €666,500 in 2023 and €1.1 million in 2024. Both figures are substantially below the annual amount alleged by Cooper.

The company also says some payments owed to it were deferred at the Curaçao government’s request. Cooper was present at the meeting where that arrangement was agreed, according to the consultancy.

Random Consulting has demanded that the finance minister either substantiate the €4 million claim or correct it publicly.

Read more Pittsburgh Steelers

The dispute comes as Galea’s wider role in the international gambling sector is again attracting scrutiny.

Galea led Malta’s Lottery and Gaming Authority, now the Malta Gaming Authority, from 2004 to 2008 and briefly served as MGA chair in 2013. He later moved into consultancy, advising jurisdictions developing online gambling regulations.

Curaçao has been a significant part of that work. In 2022, Random Consulting was appointed to help reform the island’s gambling licensing framework.

That work has already faced controversy.

In 2024, Curaçao opposition MP Luigi Faneyte accused Galea and others of fraud and embezzlement in a lengthy report. Galea rejected the allegations, while Curaçao gaming authorities disputed parts of Faneyte’s account.

Scrutiny extends beyond Curaçao

The latest dispute comes days after renewed attention on Galea’s business connections elsewhere.

A company previously owned by him, Random Systems International, has been selected to regulate Armenia’s gambling industry. Faneyte subsequently called for renewed scrutiny of Galea’s role in Curaçao’s gambling sector.

Random Consulting has stressed that Galea left Random Systems International in November 2022 and that the company has operated independently since then. It says neither Galea nor Random Consulting currently has an ownership, management or operational role in the Armenian regulator.

For now, the Curaçao investigation centres on a much more specific question: how much public money was actually paid to Random Consulting, and what those payments covered.

Read more Illegal Casinos Used Meta Ads to Reach Dutch Gamblers Banned From Legal Betting

The conflicting figures leave that basic point unresolved.

Source: timesofmalta.com