A married couple from Kazakhstan has allegedly won more than $1m from Sydney\u2019s Crown casino using a tiny camera hidden in a Mickey Mouse T-shirt and \u201cdeep-seated earpieces\u201d that allowed them to communicate.<\/p>\n
New South Wales police said on Sunday the couple, Dilnoza Israilova and Alisherykhoja Israilov, were charged with dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception, after being arrested in the Barangaroo casino.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Thursday, a 36-year-old woman was observed by casino staff wearing a small, discrete camera attached to her shirt,\u201d a police spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers were notified and attended the casino, where they arrested the woman and her 44-year-old husband.\u201d<\/p>\n
Investigators allege the couple were carrying \u201csmall, magnetised probes, batteries, and a mobile phone with a fitted attachment that allowed the camera function of the phone to discreetly view, capture or record images\u201d.<\/p>\n
Officers also seized a small custom-made mirror attachment for the mobile phone, police alleged.<\/p>\n
Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n The couple had travelled to Sydney from Kazakhstan in October 2025. They applied for Crown memberships on the day they arrived, police alleged.<\/p>\n Police allege the couple won $1.18m at Crown in October and November. Photograph: NSW police<\/p>\n Over the course of October and November, the pair visited the casino multiple times, winning a total of $1.18m, which raised suspicions at Crown, police alleged.<\/p>\n \u201cWith their mobile phones capturing images of the table, the pair communicated using deep-seated earpieces through which they received instructions to wager on various card games and ultimately cheat the casino,\u201d NSW police alleged on Sunday.<\/p>\n Officers searched the couple\u2019s accommodation on Kent Street in Sydney, where they allegedly located other gambling props, high-end jewellery and \u20ac2,000.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The couple appeared in local bail court on Friday. Neither applied for bail and it was formally refused.<\/p>\n Dilnoza Israilova was due back in court in February. Her husband, Alisherykhoja Israilov, was scheduled to appear in the Downing Centre local court on 11 December.<\/p>\n The organised crime squad commander, Det Supt Peter Faux, said police and the casino worked together to detect and prevent criminal activity.<\/p>\n \u201cOur detectives collaborate closely with casino security to identify and disrupt unlawful behaviour,\u201d Faux said. \u201cThis strong cooperation is vital to maintaining the integrity of gaming operations and is reflected in outcomes like this.\u201d<\/p>\n Investigators allege the couple were carrying \u2018small, magnetised probes, batteries, and a mobile phone\u2019. Photograph: NSW police<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A married couple from Kazakhstan has allegedly won more than $1m from Sydney\u2019s Crown casino using a tiny…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-321927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}