NEW YORK — The multibillion-dollar business of the three biggest Internet-poker companies became a target of federal authorities before an indictment was unsealed Friday charging 11 people with bank fraud and illegal gambling.
Prosecutors in Manhattan said they’ve issued restraining orders against more than 75 bank accounts used by the poker companies, interrupting the illegal flow of billions of dollars.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the defendants “concocted an elaborate criminal-fraud scheme, alternately tricking some U.S. banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal-gambling profits.” The companies, based overseas, were identified as PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. The indictment sought $3 billion in money-laundering penalties and forfeiture from the defendants.
The indictment said the companies ran afoul of the law after the U.S. in October 2006 enacted the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which makes it a crime for gambling businesses to knowingly accept most forms of payment in connection with someone partaking in unlawful Internet gambling.
Authorities said Absolute Poker responded in a release after the new law was enacted that it would continue its U.S. operations because “the U.S. Congress has no control over” the company’s payment transactions.
Efforts to reach the companies were not immediately successful. An attempt to look at the website for was met with a message from the FBI saying the domain name had been seized.
The indictment said the defendants turned to fraudulent methods to trick financial institutions into processing payments after the law was passed, such as disguising U.S. gambler payments as those to hundreds of non-existent merchants purporting to sell goods online.
