veneziace01.com is a scam: fake “Venetian Macao” casino and a 15% tax before withdrawal

Preface: we are a law firm that deals exclusively with online scams. We have already handled the case of a person who fell into the veneziace01.com trap and we can help anyone who has suffered the same scam: if you want assistance, fill in the request form at the bottom of this article.

veneziace01.com is a scam: the website, which presents itself as the gaming platform "Venetian Macao", has never returned to anyone the sums it shows on the balance. It exists to make a person believe they have won an enormous sum and, above all, to make them pay a "tax on winnings" in real money before they can withdraw. The tax does not exist, the balance is a number on a screen, and the money paid ends up in Italian bank accounts held by third parties. We do not write this on hearsay: we have examined the correspondence with the veneziace01.com support desk, the bank-transfer receipts and the conversations with two other interlocutors who accompanied the victim, and we have checked the domain registration.

The conclusion is clear: veneziace01.com is a scam because no authorised gaming operator demands the advance payment of a tax "in legal tender" to a private party before paying out a win, and because no real casino, unlike veneziace01.com, suggests that the player tell their bank the transfer is for buying household appliances. The case also has a feature that makes it instructive for anyone working in criminal law: the person had reached veneziace01.com through a supposed "fund recovery" service, that is, through a second deception built on top of the first.

How veneziace01.com works: the "Venetian Macao" casino that does not pay

The person we assisted had already been a victim, years earlier, of a fake online trading scam. In September 2026 they were contacted by a self-styled law firm specialising in recovering sums lost to fraud: a supposed lawyer, an "IT department" that would trace the funds, a 10% fee payable "only once recovery has been achieved". This is the script that practice knows as a recovery scam: someone who has already been defrauded is the most profitable target, because they have a loss to repair and every reason to believe someone can repair it.

The "tracing" of veneziace01.com produced a surprising result: the funds from the first scam had supposedly ended up on a gambling platform, "Venetian Macao", described by the same self-styled firm as one of the largest money-laundering platforms in the world. The linked website is veneziace01.com. The "technician" then explained that, to recover the funds, one had to open an account on veneziace01.com, deposit a sum and "bet" in a special way, with a protection programme installed on the account. The argument undoes itself: if veneziace01.com really were the money-laundering machine the self-styled firm describes, depositing more money there would not be a way of recovering it.

There were three payments, all by instant bank transfer to Italian IBANs supplied by the veneziace01.com support desk, each time after a request for "activation" or "capital": 500 euro on 7 October 2026, 3,000 euro on 13 October, 10,000 euro on 19 October, for a total of 13,500 euro. The last amount was financed with a personal loan. At a certain point the balance shown by veneziace01.com reached 167,248.30 euro. A withdrawal of 100 euro, granted as a test, went through. Then, on veneziace01.com, the tax appeared.

Domain, owner and authorisations: veneziace01.com is not a verifiable gaming operator

The RDAP registry, queried on 10 November 2026, shows that the domain veneziace01.com was registered on 9 July 2026 through the registrar Realtime Register B.V., expires on 9 July 2027, uses Cloudflare name servers and is active. The record was last modified on 27 October 2026, the day after the request for the 15% tax. We draw no conclusion from a coincidence of dates, but we note it: the domain is not "dormant", it is being worked while money is collected. Nothing in the record links the domain to a gaming company with a verifiable registered office and VAT number, and Cloudflare protection hides the address of the destination server.

The timing is significant: veneziace01.com had existed for almost four months when it received the first payments. For those who build schemes of this kind, three or four months is the ordinary time needed to set up a website and gather a pool of victims. A domain that is not brand new is therefore not a sign of seriousness.

As for licences, in Italy remote gaming is reserved to holders of a concession issued by the Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM), which publishes the authorised sites; offering games without a concession is a criminal offence under art. 4 of Law 401/1989. Nothing in the file refers to an ADM concession for veneziace01.com, or to an equivalent licence from another EU state. The reference to Macao by veneziace01.com is, moreover, a rhetorical device rather than a licence: the Macao gaming authority (DICJ) warned, in a November 2019 notice reproduced on a local university's website, that any online gambling site using the name of Macao or its casinos is fraudulent and that bets placed on it do not enjoy the protections provided by Macao law. The name "Venetian Macao" is, by definition, one of them.

An open-source search carried out on 10 November 2026 returned no official record of an operator called veneziace01.com. This is not definitive negative proof, and we prefer to say so clearly: absence of traces is an indication, not a certainty. It weighs as much as the rest, however, because a real casino always leaves public traces and a gaming contract with an identifiable party.

The 15% tax before withdrawal: the argument veneziace01.com uses to block the balance

On 26 October 2026 the person asked to withdraw the balance. The withdrawal was "approved". At that point veneziace01.com stated that, before paying, a 15% tax, about 25,000 euro, had to be paid in legal tender, because the sums on the account were only "virtual casino tokens" and "the tax authority only taxes legal money". Payment was to be made to the platform, which would then declare and pay the tax "to the Macao tax office", issuing a document proving compliance. The deadline was set for 4 November at 23:59, with the threat of late-payment interest.

Every step of this reasoning is built so that it cannot withstand scrutiny:

• Tax is calculated on a sum paid, not on a virtual credit. If the "tokens" were not money, there would be no taxable income. If they were a win, the tax, where due, is withheld at source by the authorised operator or declared by the player: it is never an advance payment to a private party.
• The site operator is not a withholding agent for any European tax authority: it is a party with no verifiable licence. There is no "tax office" that accepts payments to an IBAN communicated by chat.
• The person pointed out, in the chat, that no tax had been requested for a withdrawal request of 65,000 euro. The contradiction found no answer, because it cannot have one.
• An evening deadline with late-payment interest imposed by veneziace01.com is a psychological lever, not a legal institution: no obligation arises between the person and veneziace01.com merely because data were entered on a website, and nobody sets peremptory deadlines for "collecting" a win.
• If the tax had really been due, the person could have authorised its deduction from the withdrawal. They proposed this in several ways, and veneziace01.com always refused.

Demanding an additional payment against a credit that cannot be collected is the stylistic signature of this class of scams: the 15% tax of veneziace01.com is the last link in a chain in which every payment is justified by the promise of the next. We saw it already in the case of a fake crypto trading platform, where "unlocking fees" repeated the same logic in different words.

The "fund recovery" that leads to veneziace01.com: fake law firm, fake technician and "modified" odds

The most revealing part of the file does not concern the website but the interlocutors who led the person to veneziace01.com. We identified two, and their behaviour has one thing in common: every step is made conditional on depositing money in a place they cannot control, unless they do control it.

The first is the self-styled law firm that directed the person to veneziace01.com, which promised a 10% fee "only in case of recovery" and indicated an "IT expert" as the only route to recovery. The second is the "IT expert" himself, who assured a 95% success rate and claimed to have established that the person's funds, 46,000 euro, had flowed into veneziace01.com together with other victims' funds totalling 1,140,000 euro. The "method" consisted of installing a "protection programme" on the account, using, he said, the "MITRE attack platform", to raise the game odds from 1.98 to 2.10 and then bet at the same time on "Big" and "Small", with a guaranteed win. A technical clarification is needed here: MITRE ATT&CK is a public knowledge base on the techniques of cyber attackers, not a platform for altering a casino's odds. The odds shown on the screen are a figure that the site operator sets as it likes: if the aim is to demonstrate a risk-free gain, it is enough to make it appear.

The file shows other elements that investigative practice considers revealing:

• the recommendation not to mention the "technician's" presence to the veneziace01.com staff: if he were really a third party working against the platform, it would not suit him to urge the person to lie to the counterparty, and if instead he were in collusion, the recommendation is understandable;
• the advice not to tell the bank that one was gambling and, according to what the person reported, to justify the transfers as the purchase of household appliances: it is an invitation to make a false statement to a supervised intermediary and to defeat its anti-fraud safeguards;
• the suggestion to make deposits and withdrawals in cryptocurrency to "avoid having a record of transactions with the casino": the real aim is not the player's privacy but the irreversibility of the operation;
• the building of a personal bond, with stories of dramatic family events and urgent need of money, and the prospect of a "common capital" to grow together, which turns the fraudster into a companion in misfortune;
• the inversion of risk: the self-styled law firm repeated several times that no payment is due before recovery, while every operational step required a payment to veneziace01.com.

The file does not prove that the site, the "technician" and the self-styled firm are the same organisation: we say so plainly, because this has to be demonstrated. The structure, however, is that of a single hand: whoever directs you to the casino, whoever teaches you to move within the casino and whoever holds the balance never take different positions. To understand how these fake recovery services work and how to recognise them, see our review of a fund recovery company that defrauded those trying to get their losses back.

Aggravated fraud (art. 640 Criminal Code) and diminished defence: the criminal framework of veneziace01.com

The conduct described amounts to the offence of fraud under art. 640 of the Criminal Code: the artifices and deceptions consist of the fake "Venetian Macao" platform, the 167,248.30 euro balance that never existed, the 15% tax to be paid to the site, the "Macao tax office", and the technician and the recovery law firm who directed the person to the site. The unjust profit is the money collected by the beneficiaries of the transfers; the damage is the patrimony of the injured party, who had to go into debt to make the last payment.

The first aggravating profile is art. 640, second paragraph, no. 2-ter, introduced by Law 90/2024, which punishes more severely an act committed remotely with computer or telematic means capable of hindering the identification of the offender: the veneziace01.com website, messaging, foreign numbers and invented identities support it. In judgment no. 27907/2026 (hearing of 14 July 2026) the Second Criminal Section of the Court of Cassation clarified that this aggravating circumstance concerns the manner in which the conduct is carried out, and distinguishes it from the diminished defence of art. 61, no. 5, which concerns the victim's concrete vulnerability; it also held that fraud so aggravated is prosecutable only upon complaint by the injured party, by virtue of the exception in the fourth paragraph of art. 640 as amended by Decree-Law 48/2025, converted into Law 80/2025. Judgment no. 18913/2026 (hearing of 26 March 2026) confirmed that proceedings are on complaint if no. 2-ter applies and ex officio if art. 61, no. 5 applies.

The second profile is art. 61, no. 5, diminished defence, which is the key to the case. The person had already been a victim of fraud in the past; was looking for a way to recover what they had lost; and had taken out a loan to support the "plan": these are factual conditions that a knowing offender exploits and which, if proven, can ground the aggravating circumstance and, with it, prosecution ex officio. It must be said frankly that diminished defence is not a presumption and does not follow merely from having been defrauded: concrete elements must show that the offender took advantage of the victim's specific condition. The complaint must set out those elements, not merely adorn them with adjectives.

On art. 640, second paragraph, no. 2 (erroneous belief of having to obey an order of the Authority) caution is needed: the tax is presented as compliance with a foreign tax authority's levy, but it is conveyed by a private party with no taxing power. The aggravating circumstance can be alleged, but its applicability will foreseeably be debated.

In judgment no. 5191/2026 (hearing of 13 January 2026) the Court reaffirmed that fraud is "of prolonged consummation" when the deceptive activity continues to create in the victims the reliance needed to obtain further profits: this is exactly the logic of the successive payments of 500, 3,000 and 10,000 euro, followed by the demand for 25,000. The offence should not be split into many independent episodes, and its moment of consummation does not coincide with the first transfer.

Other hypotheses must be assessed: impersonation (art. 494) for the identities of the fake firm and the fake technician; unlawful operation of gaming or betting (art. 4, Law 401/1989) for whoever runs veneziace01.com; money laundering (art. 648-bis) for whoever receives and moves the funds through the Italian accounts, and self-laundering (art. 648-ter.1) for the author of the predicate offence (on the subject, Cass. II 27023/2022); and, if a stable structure with several persons, accounts and victims emerged, criminal association (art. 416). These are classifications that the complaint can indicate, but which depend on identifying the recipients of the payments: the account holders do not yet tell us who the mastermind is.

Instant transfers to Italian IBANs: the weak point of veneziace01.com, and why the bank matters

Here the case differs from almost all those we have handled: the beneficiaries of the payments are accounts opened in Italy. This is the element that gives the victim a chance to act. The veneziace01.com support desk supplied the IBAN at the time of payment, and the person reported that the account holder was not the casino but a party with whom, according to the support desk, there were "business relations". It is the picture of so-called transit accounts, often held by straw men or used to move and rapidly disperse money.

In practical terms, an instant transfer is by nature irrevocable by the payer, but that does not mean nothing can be done. One should:

• ask one's bank immediately to start the recall procedure for the transfer on grounds of fraud and to report the operation to the beneficiary's bank so it can consider blocking it;
• assert the failure to apply anti-fraud safeguards, where it occurs, knowing that payment-services law (Legislative Decree 11/2010) protects the user mainly against unauthorised transactions and that here the transaction was authorised: the intermediary's responsibility is to be sought in due diligence and in reporting suspicious transactions (Legislative Decree 231/2007, art. 35), not in the mere authorisation;
• bear in mind that payee verification, introduced by Regulation (EU) 2024/886 for instant euro transfers, lets the payer see whether the account holder's name matches the stated payee: someone who receives from a supposed casino an IBAN whose holder has nothing to do with it has an alarm signal that should be documented;
• request, in criminal proceedings, the preventive seizure of balances on the beneficiaries' accounts and, in civil proceedings, a conservatory attachment (art. 316 Code of Criminal Procedure, with civil-party claim) and recovery of undue payment (art. 2033 Civil Code) from whoever collected without a legal basis, as we showed in the solved case on recovery of undue payment after an online scam. On confiscation, see also the in-depth piece on equivalent-value confiscation and online scams.

A warning we do not wish to hide: the advice to justify the transfers as the purchase of household appliances, if it was followed before the bank, may have consequences for the reconstruction of the facts, because the bank recorded a reason that does not correspond to the truth. It creates no criminal problem for the injured party, who acted under an error induced by the offenders, but it requires explaining transparently, in the complaint, that this statement is part of the artifice.

Complaint, time limits and Italian jurisdiction: where protection is decided

A report had already been filed for the fraud suffered years earlier. This must be handled carefully, because the new matter concerns a distinct fact, with different offenders and accounts, but linked to the first by the same mechanism of re-targeting: the person reported recognising in the voice of the self-styled technician that of a previous interlocutor. This is a subjective perception that we cannot assess and that must be treated as such, but the re-targeting of victims is a known phenomenon and the complaint may ask for checks on links between the telephone numbers.

The question of the complaint remains decisive. Today, for the reasons given, prosecution is subject to a complaint in cases aggravated by no. 2-ter. The time limit is three months from the day on which the injured party learned of the fact (art. 124 Criminal Code), and the starting point is not that of the first payment but that of awareness of the deception. There is a trap here: whoever keeps doubting, partly believing the story or staying in touch with the offenders is prolonging the time of awareness, but also gives the offenders an argument about when notice of the fact was acquired. It is therefore preferable not to wait for certainties that nobody can give and to file the complaint as soon as serious signs of fraud emerge.

As to jurisdiction, since the accounts are Italian and the payments were made in Italy, art. 6 of the Criminal Code establishes Italian jurisdiction without difficulty. Territorial competence is more delicate: in fraud cases with payment by bank transfer the Court of Cassation (Sec. II, 1 February 2017, no. 14744) held that, when even one of the events of the offence occurred in the territory of the State, the competent judge is that of the last place where one of those events occurred; the question between the place of payment and the place of collection can be argued and must be framed with the rules of arts. 8 and 9 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, not taken for granted. Whoever promises quick recovery is wrong, or worse: recovery depends on how promptly the banks are notified and the account holders identified, and no serious professional can guarantee the outcome.

What to do if you have already paid veneziace01.com

If you have paid money to veneziace01.com or have been contacted by a self-styled fund recovery service, these are the steps we recommend, in order of urgency:

• do not pay the 15% tax or any other amount requested by veneziace01.com to "unlock" the balance: there is no legally relevant deadline, and a new payment will not produce the withdrawal;
• do not pay anything to anyone presenting as a law firm or IT technician and asking for deposits, even "just to activate the account" or "to bet together": a recovery that requires depositing money on a casino is, by definition, a scam;
• keep everything: chats, transfer receipts with CRO or TRN, beneficiaries' IBANs, balance screenshots, emails, telephone numbers, website addresses and links received;
• call your bank immediately to request recall of the transfers and blocking of the beneficiaries' accounts, and do so in writing, indicating dates and IBANs;
• do not try to "recover" the balance with more bets, cryptocurrency or programmes suggested by third parties: that is how the damage grows;
• if you took out a loan to pay, keep the contract and discuss the relationship with the lender with a lawyer, without stopping repayments without having consulted a professional;
• file a complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office or a judicial police office within three months of realising the deception, attaching the documentation ordered by date and amount, and report the site to the Postal Police.

How to recognise a fake casino with a "tax on winnings" before paying

A few signs, which in the case of veneziace01.com are all present, are enough to rule out a serious operator:

• the tax on winnings is requested as an advance payment, to a private party's account and in legal tender, before any credit;
• the support desk, usually on WhatsApp or Telegram, gives different IBANs for each payment, and the account holder does not coincide with the site operator;
• the balance grows implausibly, and a first withdrawal of a minimal amount is granted to inspire trust;
• the site gives no company name, ADM concession or equivalent licence, and invokes a distant authority (Macao, Malta, Curaçao) to justify the impossibility of checks;
• whoever guides you urges you not to tell the bank or family, to use cryptocurrency or to give false reasons for the transfers;
• every obstacle, from the deadline to the security check, is solved with a new payment.

veneziace01.com is a scam: the final warning

A single missing element could be an oversight. In the case of veneziace01.com the company name, VAT number, registered office and concession are all missing; the domain, registered in July 2026, cannot be traced to a verifiable gaming operator; a 15% tax is demanded in advance, in legal tender, by a private party; payments are requested to Italian accounts held by third parties, with instructions not to inform the bank; the balance shown by veneziace01.com was never paid out, apart from a test withdrawal of 100 euro; and the person reached the site through a recovery service that in turn asked them to deposit. The picture, taken as a whole, is such that, absent proof to the contrary, prudence requires treating veneziace01.com as a scam. Whoever runs veneziace01.com is free to reply with public documents, stating company, authorisations and registered office.

If you have paid money to veneziace01.com, have been asked for a tax to withdraw a win, or have turned to a self-styled fund recovery service that directed you to a gaming platform, contact us by filling in the form at the bottom of this page: we are a law firm that handles only online scam cases, we have already followed this case and we will assess your position, including out of court, indicating the initiatives that are concretely feasible, without promising results that no serious professional can guarantee. If you have suffered the same scam, we can help you.