Montik’s defense strategy rested on a semantic maneuver: SoftSwiss and its related entities were not Payment Service Providers, merely B2B software vendors that “forwarded income.” But in court, that distinction collapsed.
When the presiding judge interrupted Montik’s attempt to distance himself from payment intermediation and stated he “knows by now what a PSP is and what not,” it was more than a reprimand — it was a judicial demolition of the defense narrative.
Because function matters more than labeling.
If Direx N.V. (formerly SoftSwiss N.V., now Dama N.V.) received aggregated player deposits through Wirecard accounts and redistributed those funds in structured transfers to multiple casino operators, then it was acting as a payment intermediary. That is not a software activity. That is financial processing.
Whether or not the company printed “PSP” on a slide deck is legally irrelevant.
This wasn’t a branding issue. It was a licensing issue.
And based on courtroom disclosures, there was no PSP license covering those flows.
The defense introduced a payments list showing approximately €422 million flowing into Direx accounts. Not small operational revenue. Not routine platform fees. Nearly half a billion euros.
Even more troubling were the characteristics of the outgoing payments: repeating, rounded amounts redistributed to various third parties.
Financial crime specialists recognize this pattern immediately. Rounded recurring transfers are classic red flags in automated shadow accounting or layering techniques often associated with money laundering typologies.
Montik’s response? He claimed no knowledge of the flows and referred vaguely to a finance director — “Ivan Schubowski (or similar).”
For a founder and CEO to disclaim knowledge of €422 million moving through affiliated accounts strains credibility.
Either the CEO was unaware of nearly half a billion euros in payment flows through his ecosystem — an extraordinary governance failure — or he was aware and attempting distance under oath.
Neither scenario inspires regulatory confidence.
SoftSwiss today operates via Stable Aggregator Limited, licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA/B2B/942/2022). On paper, this provides a layer of European regulatory legitimacy.
But Montik’s admission that Direx evolved into Dama N.V., domiciled in Curaçao — a jurisdiction frequently associated with “grey market” gaming operations — creates a structural contradiction.
If the operational payment flows and redistribution mechanics sat within Curaçao-based entities while the European-facing structure held an MGA license, then a two-tiered architecture may have been in play:
A regulated European shell
An offshore financial engine
This raises a systemic regulatory question:
Was the MGA license functioning as a compliance façade while high-risk payment intermediation occurred elsewhere?
If so, this is not merely a corporate governance issue — it is a regulatory integrity crisis.
The ecosystem does not stop with Direx/Dama.
Investigations have linked Dream Finance Group — operating CoinsPaid and CryptoProcessing — to the wider business orbit publicly associated with Montik. The emergence of crypto-payment routing as part of the broader infrastructure suggests an evolution of the model: from fiat Wirecard processing to digital asset channels.
Most recently, Dream Finance was forced to suspend crypto-asset related services in Lithuania, at least temporarily. That development adds a new dimension: regulatory friction is no longer hypothetical.
The financial architecture appears adaptable. When traditional processors collapse (Wirecard), alternative channels emerge.
The question is not whether the model existed. The testimony confirms it did.
The question is whether regulators will act on what is now on the record.
For years, investigative reporting mapped the SoftSwiss ↔ Direx ↔ Dama ↔ Wirecard constellation.
The September 2025 testimony moves that narrative from investigative reconstruction into sworn judicial acknowledgment.
This is no longer theory. It is courtroom record.
If regulators fail to respond decisively, they signal that offshore payment intermediation routed through regulated European gateways is tolerable — so long as it is labeled “B2B software.”
The Wirecard scandal exposed systemic blindness in European fintech supervision. The SoftSwiss/Dama testimony suggests the blindness may not yet be cured.
