New York police authorities arrested 26 members of the Gambino organized crime family for running a highly sophisticated illegal gambling enterprise in Queens County and elsewhere that booked nearly $10 million in wagers on US sports over a two-year period. The illegal gambling ring relied on modern technology, including tollfree telephone numbers and four websites in Costa Rica, namely betallsports.com, betoffshore.net, betmsg.com and betwsi.com, which served as computerized wire rooms through which the enterprise conducted much of its illegal gambling activity.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said: “Illegal gambling has always been the bread and butter moneymaker for organized crime because of the huge profits that it generates which can then be used to fund other more insidious forms of criminal activity, such as labor racketeering, drug trafficking, prostitution, auto theft, insurance fraud and loan sharking. Illegal gambling is by no means a victimless crime – it provides the fuel that allows organized crime to operate and is often accompanied by threats, intimidation and violence in the collection of gambling debts.”
District Attorney Brown continued: “In keeping up with modern technology, the illegal gambling enterprise in this case is alleged to have gone online, supplementing the traditional wire room and street corner bookie who penciled in wagers in a little black book with offshore-based internet websites – designed for sports betting and casino-style gambling – and toll-free telephone numbers through which they were able to manage numerous gambling accounts, out of which criminal proceeds were collected and distributed throughout the New York City-metropolitan area. Such computerized wire rooms operate around the clock and can handle a large volume of bettors at any one time, thus allowing the organizers to increase their illicit profits without having to bother with the time-consuming record-keeping aspects of a more traditional, paper-based bookmaking operation. Unfortunately for the defendants, the law enforcement community isjust as adept in using new technology to stop those involved in such criminal activity.”
Calculators
