Gambling Raids In New Your City
Published: Friday, May 20, 2005 Online-Casinos.com
GAMBLING RAIDS IN NEW YORK
36 arrested in federal actions
Reports
from the United States were coming in as we went to press on large scale illegal
gambling raids across the New York City and Pennsylvania, with federal officials
apparently arresting 36 people.
Five people were initially arrested during
the early morning hours of Tuesday, with 31 more picked up on Wednesday morning.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown and Police Commissioner Raymond
W. Kelly, announced the indictment of 36 individuals on charges of operating an
illegal gambling ring, apparently with organised crime connections. The ring handled
illegal wagers on horse racing, professional baseball and football and other sporting
events totaling a staggering $360 million over two years.
The indictment
also alleges that the ring used a non-traditional "wire room" in the
form of an off-shore, internet-based gambling service used by bettors and runners
to actually place their wagers. It is alleged that the ring used the off-shore
wire room to maintain numerous runners' and bettors' gambling accounts through
the Internet website in an effort to evade law enforcement detection through traditional
methods.
The criminal enterprise allegedly handled about 2,000 bets each
day that generated gross revenues of nearly $500,000 daily, $15 million a month
and $180 million a year during the 28-month period covered by the indictment.
It is alleged to have relied on modern technology to generate its criminal proceeds
including computers, the Internet, e-mail and AOL instant messaging to safedepositsports.com
and a toll free telephone number that ran up a monthly bill of over $50,000.
Safe Deposit Sports operated out of Costa Rica last year.
The reports
said that a feature of the law enforcement tactics was the use of wiretaps, where
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown is "...making his mark as the nation's
leader in using wire taps."
Brown recently filed notice of 216 court-authorised
wiretaps... almost as many as other D.A.s use in the rest of New York State put
together, says one report, claiming that a legal expert called the number "staggering."
Brown says the wiretaps are an invaluable weapon against organised crime, illegal
drugs and gambling.
And new technology enables the surveillance of emails,
instant messages, web site servers and in some rare cases interactive message
boards.
Several dozen computers in the tri-state area were seized. Later
in the week 31 of the 36 indicted members of a gambling ring were arraigned in
State Supreme Court in Queens, with 5 other indicted members still being actively
sought.
The accuseds were arraigned on charges of enterprise corruption
and promoting gambling. The alleged ringleader of the gambling ring and owner
of Safe Deposit Sports was apparently one Christopher Bruno, 34, of Bethpage,
L.I., who it was claimed was caught on an FBI tape bragging that he was "...the
Osama Bin Laden of gambling." His brother, an employee of the Cantor Fitzgerald
stock broking firm was also indicted for allegedly taking bets along with 5 other
executives of that company.
