A district court in Finland has given NAVI’s in-game leader a four-month suspended prison sentence for leaving €53,000 of Valve sticker income from 2019 off his tax return. The court found that he acted intentionally, which he had denied. The ruling can be appealed until 26 November, and on Wednesday evening he leads NAVI into a match that decides whether they reach the PGL Masters Bucharest 2026 quarter-finals.
The District Court of Eastern Uusimaa found Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen, 29, guilty of aggravated tax fraud on Tuesday. The sentence is four months of suspended imprisonment with a probation period that runs until 26 October 2028, Ilta-Sanomat reports. A suspended sentence is not served in prison as long as the conditions of the probation period are met.
It is the sentence the prosecutor asked for when the case was heard on 16 October. We covered the hearing and the charge, which was first made public in March.
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Court | District Court of Eastern Uusimaa, Finland |
| Conviction | Aggravated tax fraud |
| Sentence | Four months, suspended |
| Probation | Two years, until 26 October 2028 |
| Income not declared | €53,227.90 (2019 tax year) |
| Income tax assessed too low | €28,196.40 |
| Where the money came from | Valve’s sticker payments from the two 2019 Majors |
| Appeal deadline | 26 November 2026 |
| Status | Not final |
Sticker money from two Majors
The undeclared income came from Counter-Strike stickers. Teams and players at each Major get their own in-game stickers, and Valve pays them a share of the sales. In 2019, Aleksib was the in-game leader of ENCE, who reached the final of IEM Katowice in March and also played the StarLadder Berlin Major that summer. HLTV writes that the €53,000 came from those two events.
In court, Aleksib denied guilt. According to Ilta-Sanomat, he told the court that he believed tax had already been paid on the sticker money, which reached him in several instalments during 2019. An accounting firm had handled his taxes earlier, and his understanding of taxation was limited at the time. He paid the missing tax later, after the Finnish Tax Administration sent him a payment form, and thought the matter was closed.
Why the court found intent
The court did not accept that explanation. The undeclared income was around a third of everything Aleksib earned in 2019, and in its view it was not credible that an amount of that size had been forgotten on a tax return. It concluded that he acted intentionally.
“The tax fraud aimed at considerable financial gain. Assessed as a whole, the tax fraud is also aggravated,” the judgment reads, as quoted by Ilta-Sanomat (our translation from Finnish).
The ruling is not legally binding yet. Aleksib has until 26 November to appeal it to a higher court.
Singapore on the horizon
NAVI secured their place at PGL Major Singapore 2026 with their first two wins in Bucharest. The Major runs from 24 November to 13 December, so the appeal deadline falls two days after it starts.
HLTV notes that the conviction goes on Aleksib’s criminal record, and that this could make visa applications and travel to international events more complicated. Whether it has any effect on his trips with the team has not been addressed. HLTV asked Aleksib for a comment and did not get a reply, and neither he nor NAVI had said anything publicly about the ruling by Wednesday morning.
Five years after the two Majors at the centre of the case, in Copenhagen in March 2024, Aleksib became the first Finn to win a Major, and HLTV named him the best in-game leader of that year.
The same evening against Vitality
The verdict was published in Finland on Tuesday afternoon. That evening, Aleksib called for NAVI against Vitality with a quarter-final place on the line, and lost 2-0. Vitality took NAVI’s Inferno pick 13-2, then won all ten rounds after half-time on Dust2 to turn a 9-3 deficit into 13-9. Aleksib finished the series with 16 kills and 30 deaths.
That leaves NAVI on two wins and two losses, level with Spirit, whom they face on in the fifth and final Swiss round. The winner joins the quarter-finals on three wins. The loser leaves Bucharest.
NAVI2-0
G2StatsNuke 13-11, Dust2 22-19
makazze
MATYSNAVI2-0
FURIAStatsAncient 13-10, Dust2 13-5
yuurih
BetBoom2-0NAVIStatsDust2 13-10, Nuke 13-9
zorte
Vitality2-0NAVIStatsInferno 13-2, Dust2 13-9
SpiritvsNAVISwiss round five, Every result and the full schedule are on our PGL Masters Bucharest 2026 page.
