DoJ clampdown claims first victim
BetED closes its doors following Monday's indictments, which saw 11 bank accounts and 10 domains seized.
The BetED sportsbook has become the first US-facing gambling business forced to close its doors as a result of US prosecutors’ ongoing clampdown of offshore gambling sites.
According to an industry source in Costa Rica, the company’s San Jose office was shut yesterday after the seizure of its bank accounts by US authorities left it unable to transact business or pay customers.
BetED was one of the sportsbooks caught by an elaborate federal sting operation set up “in an effort to identify online gambling organisations using third-party payment processors in the United States”, according to an affidavit submitted in support of a Baltimore Grand Jury indictments for money laundering and illegal gambling against two companies and three individuals unsealed on Tuesday. 11 bank accounts and 10 internet domain names belonging to gambling companies were also seized.
According to the testimony of Homeland Security Investigations special agent Lisa M Ward, BetED allegedly used a payment processor set up by the US Department of Homeland Security in the name of Linwood Payment Systems to wire transfer millions of collected gambling proceeds to bank accounts in Panama.
The sworn affidavit also details how the period of December 2009 and January 2011 saw Linwood allegedly wire transfer around 300,000 transactions worth more than US$33m on behalf of several gambling companies, including Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet, top managers of which were indicted on money laundering and illegal gambling charges on Black Friday.
The indictment for money laundering and operating an illegal gambling business against ThrillX Systems, “doing business as” BetED, and two Canadian men, Darren Wright and David Parchomchuk, accuses them of having transferred funds out of the US via a Linwood Systems bank account in the US Pacific territory of Guam to a ThrillX Systems account at Credicorp bank in Panama. These accounts were among those seized on Tuesday, leaving BetED unable to continue in business.