The federal grand jury for the District of Maryland has handed down 2 separate indictments, charging two online gambling companies and three people with money laundering and conducting a gambling business. The first indictment named defendants ThrillX Systems Ltd., doing business as BetEd.com, along with Darren Wright and David Parchomchuk. The second named K23 Group Financial Services, doing business as BMX Entertainment, along with Ann Marie Puig. Ten domains were seized. The domains include Bookmaker.com, 2Betsdi.com, Funtimebingo.com, Goldenarchcasino.com, Betmaker.com, Betgrandesports.com, Betehorse.com, and the most recognizable names of the bunch, Doylesroom.com, BetEd.com, and TruePoker.com.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) set up an undercover sting operation to gather evidence against the defendants. The HSI released a press release, in which it revealed HSI created a payment processing company called Linwood Payment Solutions in order to catch the offshore gambling companies doing business with U.S. residents. HSI even went as far as to state that an online gambler that is cooperating with investigators; went to BetEd.com in the later part of 2009 and opened an account and made a deposit of $500. In March of 2010 the online gambler made a withdrawl. BetEd used Linwood Payment Solutions to process the transfer of $100 in winnings back to the online gambler’s bank account
From December 2009 to January 2011 Linwood Payment Solutions is alleged to have made over 300,000 individual transactions that totaled over $33 million. From February 2010 and January 2011 Linwood Payment Solutions made wire transfers totalling more than $2.5 million in Panama for BetEd.com. Between February 2011 and April 2011, K23 Group Financial Services had sent $91,000 in wire transfers to bank accounts in Malta and to Portugal. U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in the press release:
“It is illegal for internet gambling enterprises to do business in Maryland, regardless of where the website operator is located,”
“We cannot allow foreign website operators to flout the law simply because their headquarters are based outside the country.”
Stay tuned to MakePokerLegal.com for more information as this story unfolds.
