Plano Gambling Ring
The biggest gambling city in Asia was home to one of the biggest gambling stings. (Source: cdn2.com) 2) Costa Rican Catch. The 2015 NFL season was an incredibly profitable one for four men running a gambling ring in Costa Rica, and later, the authorities. A Plano officer developed a betting relationship with a sports bookmaker. Prosecutors say wagers through websites hosted outside the U.S. Generated about $200 million for the ring members. “But sentencing guidelines for a gambling case are quite low and actually provide for first time offenders to get probation.” To date, the U.S. Government has collected more than $10 million from the gambling ring’s illegal profits. Nearly $5 million was presented to the Plano police for the department’s role in the investigation.
In Texas, home to the Pink Pyramid of Mary Kay Cosmetics, federal and local law enforcement, as well as the Internal Revenue Service busted a “major illegal gambling operation.”
While that in and of itself is newsworthy, what makes the story even more interesting is that authorities compared the pyramid-style gambling operation to Mary Kay Cosmetics:
Federal authorities and Plano police announced Thursday that they have broken up a major illegal gambling operation run out of North Texas that collected more than $5 billion in bets over a four-year span.
The investigation into the group lasted more than a decade and resulted in the prosecution of 18 bookkeepers, most of whom lived in the Dallas area. The bookkeepers collected bets on sporting events, especially football games. No bettors were prosecuted in the case, authorities said.
Those defendants are believed to have made more than $200 million from 2007 to 2011.
Called The Reed Group, the operation was led by 57-year-old Southlake resident Albert Sydney Reed, authorities said. He has been convicted in federal court of running an illegal gambling business and was sentenced to one year in prison.
Authorities compared the organization to an illicit Mary Kay type operation. Reed was the organizer, but operators made money by recruiting lower level bookies to collect bets.
Many of the bets were made online and reached enormous amounts, sometimes six or seven figures, authorities said. Members would meet and interact at restaurants, sports bars, country clubs, parking lots and each other’s houses. For most of the participants, the operation was a full-time job. [Emphasis added.]
You can read the whole story here.
One can certainly understand the authorities’ comparison since, according to one expert, the odds of winning at the Roulette table at Caesar’s Palace are better than making money in a product-based multi-level-marketing scheme.
Related:
Plano Gambling Ring Earrings
The Plano Police Department received a check for nearly $5 million Thursday after assisting in the dismantling of a large Internet-based gambling operation with ties to Texas.
U.S. Attorney John Bales and IRS Special Agent in Charge Madie Branch handed the Plano police a check for $4,753,841.40 in an asset sharing ceremony at police headquarters.
According to a statement from the Department of Justice, the Plano police began an undercover investigation in 2006 into a bookmaker. According to the DOJ, that bookmaker was connected to a larger organization operating an offshore sports book in Willemstad Curacao, Netherlands Antilles.
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Through the investigation, 18 North Texas residents were identified as conspirators who accepted wagers on college and professional sports through 25 websites hosted in Curacao.
'The defendants provided bettors with a personal login code and password to facilitate the placement of wagers through the websites and to disguise their identities. Bettors were then directed to specific websites or to toll free numbers operated by the websites where the bettors placed wagers on sporting events,' the DOJ said in a news release Thursday.
On March 3 and 4, 2011, 32 federal search warrants were executed at residences, offices and safe-deposit boxes of the defendants. Additionally, 47 seizure warrants were executed to seize bank and investment accounts, cars and property.
Plano Gambling Ring Necklace
In 2012, NBC 5's Scott Gordon reported the IRS said the gambling ring collected $1 billion a year and as many as 35,000 phone calls a month.
'The investigation disclosed that this illegal Internet wagering organization generated in excess of $5.4 billion in gross wagers resulting in approximately $200 million in illegal earnings to the defendants from January 2007 to February 2011.
All 18 of the defendants have pleaded guilty to various criminal violations ranging from money laundering to tax violations. Additionally, more than $10 million has been forfeited to the U.S. Government.