Department of Justice cracking down on money laundering!

[riverspecialist]

I just found this article on yahoo news. The temporary setup allowing people to make deposits through western union seems to be in bad shape. What does this mean? Whats next?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070512/tc_pcworld/131766

[Jeffiner99]

[ QUOTE ]
I just found this article on yahoo news. The temporary setup allowing people to make deposits through western union seems to be in bad shape. What does this mean? Whats next?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070512/tc_pcworld/131766

[/ QUOTE ]

Cripes this looks bad. Can you call your congressman and complain about the actions of the DOJ? Or is their someone else to complain to? Anyone know? Flood the DOJ director with calls?

[TheEngineer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I just found this article on yahoo news. The temporary setup allowing people to make deposits through western union seems to be in bad shape. What does this mean? Whats next?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070512/tc_pcworld/131766

[/ QUOTE ]

Cripes this looks bad. Can you call your congressman and complain about the actions of the DOJ? Or is their someone else to complain to? Anyone know? Flood the DOJ director with calls?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, this looks bad. This is what we're up against!! You see now why we want to take the initiative right now, before the UGIEA regs are in place, and before this is seen as established law?

Yes, we can flood Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales with calls, but I imagine we won't top his list on concerns right now. It is one of my Weekly Action Item items, so we should.

[Skallagrim]

It will do no good to send letters to Gonzales. These defendants almost for certain facilitated sports betting so the DOJ is on solid legal ground here.

But this should be an ominous sign for the complacent out there. The DOJ is clearly committed to prosecution in this area. It is only a matter of time before they reach the point where they will take on the poker sites and the funding methods for poker sites.

The only thing that willl stop them is a change in the law:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...;gonew=1#UNREAD (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=9946416&an=0&page=0&gone w=1#UNREAD)

Skallagrim

[TheEngineer]

[ QUOTE ]
It will do no good to send letters to Gonzales. These defendants almost for certain facilitated sports betting so the DOJ is on solid legal ground here.

But this should be an ominous sign for the complacent out there. The DOJ is clearly committed to prosecution in this area. It is only a matter of time before they reach the point where they will take on the poker sites and the funding methods for poker sites.

The only thing that willl stop them is a change in the law:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...;gonew=1#UNREAD (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=9946416&an=0&page=0&gone w=1#UNREAD)

Skallagrim

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't send a note to Gonzales on this issue. I guess I should have been specific when I referenced by Action Item item. I was thinking more in terms of his hesitancy to offer up tough regs to Kyl during the Senate hearing last month. It may a good idea to send him a letter and remind him that many Americans think he shouldn't exceed UIGEA's minumum requirements (not much else we can ask....it's his job to enforce the law, and UIGEA is that).

I haven't written my letter to him yet, primarily because I haven't figured out exactly what to ask. I may get to it this weekend.

Kyl sucks.

I agree 100% on the vigilance of the DOJ. They aren't playing. I can't believe people are actually encouraging us to sit back until we get a legalization bill that satisfies everyone's ideological opinions and concerns over what COULD potentially happen in some kind of worst-case scenario.

[JPFisher55]

[ QUOTE ]
It will do no good to send letters to Gonzales. These defendants almost for certain facilitated sports betting so the DOJ is on solid legal ground here.

But this should be an ominous sign for the complacent out there. The DOJ is clearly committed to prosecution in this area. It is only a matter of time before they reach the point where they will take on the poker sites and the funding methods for poker sites.

The only thing that willl stop them is a change in the law:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...;gonew=1#UNREAD (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=9946416&an=0&page=0&gone w=1#UNREAD)

Skallagrim

[/ QUOTE ]
Skall, if they do then at least we have a chance for a favorable court ruling on poker. I think that is the best chance for a poker exemption and improvement on the current situation.

[Skallagrim]

If it comes to that, I hope and pray you are right JP.

The arguments are lined up, with a little help from me and the other regular posters here, and I am optomistic.

But we are both lawyers JP, I dont have to tell you things are far from certain. Being right isnt a guarantee of victory in Court, unfortunately, but it does help /images/graemlins/wink.gif .

Skallagrim

[JPFisher55]

Skall, I agree with you about uncertainty of any court victory. Actually, I would predict that we lose at the District Court level unless it is located in a state like California. I like our chances at the Court of Appeals level. But who knows.
FWIW. according to a video on APCW.org, the trial judge in the Carruthers case in St. Louis ruled that the Wire Act applies to all online gambling despite the present appellate rulings that it only applies to sports betting. The man on the video did not provide any details.
My only point is that a court victory at some level of federal court is more likely than any legislative victory for online poker.

[CompatiblePoker]

[ QUOTE ]
I just found this article on yahoo news. The temporary setup allowing people to make deposits through western union seems to be in bad shape. What does this mean? Whats next?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070512/tc_pcworld/131766

[/ QUOTE ]


This just follows up what the Treasury SAID they were going to be doing at the beginning of the month.

XXwww.treasury.gov/press/releases/hp386.htm

[permafrost]

indictment (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ut/press/indictments/US%20v%20Lombardo%20et%20al%20indictment.pdf)

appears to all related to illegal sports betting businesses

[LeapFrog]

[ QUOTE ]
indictment (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ut/press/indictments/US%20v%20Lombardo%20et%20al%20indictment.pdf)

appears to all related to illegal sports betting businesses

[/ QUOTE ]

Well if that turns out to be the extent of it, then its pretty much what I thought this weekend (from the thread in the zoo) Roy was of the opinion the sky was falling. This should have been my last post in that thread as I was running on like 2 hours of 'sleep' due to the 10b. Oh and thanks PS for KK vs AA a bunch and plenty 2 and 3 outers.

[ QUOTE ]

Because Roy if it is just the DOJ after sportbetting sites again then it is not really a change of the status quo. Bad news, yes. Terrible news, no.

It's so obvious, why are you making ME repeat it?


[/ QUOTE ]

[Skallagrim]

Yep. permafrost is right. All specified allegations relating to "illegal gambling" are for sports betting sites.

[MiltonFriedman]

This BetUS indictment is a very BIG deal because, regardless of whether the underlying activity in THIS CASE was sportsbetting, the offense was processing uncoded credit card transactions, a common practice for facilitating deposits among the larger "poker-only" sites.

You should consider that "uncoded credit card processing" is being deemed money laundering, regardless of the purpose of the transaction.(Also, regardless of the fact that the buyer and seller BOTH knew of the transaction purpose and there was no chargeback by the customer.)

The BetUS facts are uniquely bad, but sportsbetting is NOT a required element of money laundering.

(FWIW, there is not any charge under the UIGE Act involved.)

[Coy_Roy]

[ QUOTE ]
Roy was of the opinion the sky was falling.

[/ QUOTE ]

How dare you put words (or thoughts and motives) in my mouth.

You overreacted to every comment I made and I still stand by every single point I was making.

I'm 40 years old and my opinions are always based on my own real experience.

Grow up and stop being so "in" to internet "battles". It's pointless.

[LeapFrog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Roy was of the opinion the sky was falling.

[/ QUOTE ]

How dare you put words (or thoughts and motives) in my mouth.


[/ QUOTE ]

Uh roy this was my opinion. Most of the people here have probably read the zoo thread thread and are more then capable of drawing their own conclusions based on what you posted. Its not like their opinion is going to be radically swayed by what some random dude on the internet has written. So, don't act so wounded, your honor is NOT besmirched. Just so we are clear and for the record:

[ QUOTE ]
It appeared to myself, LeapFrog, that Roy was of the opinion the sky was falling. I thought this because of some of the things he posted in the zoo thread.

[/ QUOTE ]



[ QUOTE ]

I'm 40 years old and my opinions are always based on my own real experience.

Grow up and stop being so "in" to internet "battles". It's pointless.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am 30.5 years old, but if I was 16 does that make what I say count any less? Perhaps you should be a bit less quick to overreact to my statements and 'jump on me'. First thing in the thread I wrote was:

[ QUOTE ]

What we need to be asking:

Are these arrests in any way related to poker? Do any of the charges stem from transfer of $ to poker sites?


[/ QUOTE ]

You followed by:

[ QUOTE ]

What do you think?

My last two deposits at a certain poker site were listed in my cc statement as a "clothing store" and a "furniture" store.

One of the companies mentioned btw, was BetUS, which uses the cake network as their poker platform.


[/ QUOTE ]

Not alarmist and quite classy with the 'what do you think' starter. This statement, along with your first post in the thread (below) and also general tone placed you in the 'sky is falling camp' in my book. You seemed to be implying that there the indictments were related to poker in addition to the sportsbetting. I thought that was over the top based on what we knew at the time.

Your first post in the thread:

[ QUOTE ]

I hate to be an alarmist but this could possibly push a poker site teetering one way or the other to finally pull the plug on the US.


[/ QUOTE ]

[Coy_Roy]

[ QUOTE ]

I hate to be an alarmist but this could possibly push a poker site teetering one way or the other to finally pull the plug on the US.


[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

From "possibly" to "the sky is falling" is an incredible stretch.

I stand by everything still.

I have zero interest in debating this with you..

[LeapFrog]

[ QUOTE ]

I stand by everything still.

I have zero interest in debating this with you..

[/ QUOTE ]

Roy I was pointed out that what I wrote was my opinion and explaining why I thought what I thought.



[ QUOTE ]

What we need to be asking:

Are these arrests in any way related to poker? Do any of the charges stem from transfer of $ to poker sites?


[/ QUOTE ]
Roy, the gist of my first questions was quite clear (especially since I bolded wire-act when I quoted you). It was: do any of the indictments mention poker. So when you say 'what do you think' then go off and mention Cake what exactly are you saying? Did you just skip both questions and go off on some tangent? To me this implies that you believed that we would see 'poker' (or poker covered under illegal gambling) in the indictments. This seemed over the top based on what we knew at the time.

Apparently it was all sports betting, right?

[Skallagrim]

Milton, while falsifying credit card transactions is a crime (and that crime would apply to whatever poker only site chose to do this), to get to money laundering or RICO there have to underlying criminal acts that the false credit card reports were covering up (thats why the sportbetting angle is important in this case).

You are right to be concerned for any US based companies that do the same.

But a poker only site doing this in a foreign country is probably not going to worry: without the money laundering charge, I am pretty sure that there would be no case for extradition just for mis-labelling an otherwise legal credit transaction.

[MiltonFriedman]

Skall,

I am interested in whehter or not mis-coding is ITSELF a crime because of the possible distinction betwen a breach of contract and a crime. Coding is a contractual requirement for sure, where/when/how did it become a criminal law matter ?

Any cite or source would be useful ....

Keep in mind that no one's money was fraudulently taken, these are NOT customer driven complaints. Rather, the issuing bank is supposedly wronged because it processed a transaction, for which it has contractual remedies and penalties.

Also, where is the role of VISA and Mastercard in facilitating these transactions anyways ?

Finally, however, If mis-coding credit card transactions IS itself a crime, rather than just a breach of contract, you might want to re-read what is a predicate offense under RICO.

[Skallagrim]

Since you are not paying me to do it Milton, I am not gonna go slogging throught the Federal Statute Books over lunch /images/graemlins/wink.gif .

My recollection is that falsifying credit transaction reports is a crime under various laws that require such reporting to be accurate. Kind of like making false statements on a loan application: its a "small" crime by itself, but becomes a big one if the whole point was to defraud someone (not actually intend to repay the loan, e.g.).

So, once the falsity is tied to other criminal activity, the penalties start to go way up. And then the otherwise petty offense can get wrapped up into Rico and Money Laundering.

I have handled RICO cases, and I may be wrong, but I dont think intentionally falsifying credit card transaction records is one of the predicate offenses. I admit there are a lot of predicate offenses - but again, I will wait till I can bill someone to actually look it up /images/graemlins/smile.gif.

[Orlando Salazar]

HIJACK:

Skall, what's a secret indictment and have you ever heard of Jamal Barrows?

[permafrost]

[ QUOTE ]
Yep. permafrost is right. All specified allegations relating to "illegal gambling" are for sports betting sites.

[/ QUOTE ]

Having re-read it, I now realze the indictment mentions internet gambling sites that "took sports bets". That doesn't preclude them taking casino or poker bets as part of the business.

I wonder why Betus did not get a count for accepting funds under UIGEA; along with the conspiracy count? Would that be a separate case?

[Skallagrim]

1) A "secret" indictment is merely an indictment thats handed down by a grand jury before a person has been arrested AND is kept "secret" until the person has been arrested. Once the person is arrested (except for unique national security cases) an indictment must be made available to the public.

All specified illegal gambling activity in that indictmnet was sportsbetting. Perma, do you have to disagree with me even when I say you are right? /images/graemlins/wink.gif - if it aint in the indictment, it aint part of the case. So there could have been other stuff going on, but they are not being accused of breaking the law by doing it.

My guess as to the UIGEA bit is that they havent really had the time at the FBI to build UIGEA cases, its only been 7 months you know...

[permafrost]

[ QUOTE ]


All specified illegal gambling activity in that indictmnet was sportsbetting. Perma, do you have to disagree with me even when I say you are right? /images/graemlins/wink.gif - if it aint in the indictment, it aint part of the case. So there could have been other stuff going on, but they are not being accused of breaking the law by doing it. I was disagreeing with me. Now I'm not. /images/graemlins/wink.gif




[/ QUOTE ]