A 46-year-old man from Aurora, Ohio, has been sentenced to three years of probation after authorities busted a $600,000 illicit gambling ring, he had been running for close to five years.
Local Bookie’s Large-Scale Gambling Ring Busted
A bookmaker from Aurora, Cleveland, Ohio will have to forfeit over $600,000 back to authorities after a district judge found him guilty of running an illicit gambling ring. According to a ruling issued on Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Patricia Gaughan Ryan Driscoll, 46, had facilitated a gambling operation without any permit to do so.
Ryan has been sentenced to three years of probation on money laundering charges, falsifying tax return and running an illegal gambling business. However, the man will have to cover restitution charges to the tune of $208,693 which will come on top of the $628,950 that authorities have already seized from him in August.
Ohio was previously cited in another case where 11 people have been indicted for running an illegal gambling operation with ties to an online betting website hosted in Costa Rica. According to an IRS Criminal Investigation, pointed out that the website used gift cards and Bitcoin to allow participants to circumnavigate credit card restrictions.
A Cozy Operation Running for Close to Five Years
Upon raiding his house, police found bundles and wads of cash to the tune of $10,000 each. According to the prosecutors overseeing the trial, Driscoll underreported his income by $825,000 in the period between 2014 and 2017, raising a red flag in the tax office’s audit of his finances.
He never declared his illegal gambling proceeds, prosecutors clarified. As part of the business, Driscoll ran a bookmaker that facilitated bets for offshore gambling companies and people who preferred to use Driscoll as proxy. Websites would allow Driscoll to collect winnings locally and distribute them among punters, court records specified.
Interestingly, the money laundering charges are the result of Driscoll’s membership to the Mayfield Sand Ridge Club bought with the proceedings from the gambling operation. He also used $200,000 of the money to make payments on his car and other items. Driscoll first pleaded guilty in January. He ran the ring between 2015 and 2019.
With the massive push to legalize the gambling and sports betting industry in the Untied States, the number of illegal operations in the country has fallen significantly. Worst case scenario, people just choose to bet offshore, but few people dare run an operation on the mainland by themselves and without proper authorization.
Illegal operations have been unearthed in other states, and specifically New York, where poker is still illegal online and underground games take place often enough to prompt big headlines.
Sports is another huge source of undeclared outcome with a pair of six individuals, to wit Gordan Baird, Robert Barletta, Habiba Kajan, and Dejan Markovic busted in New York for running gambling operation that accepted $11 million in illicit wagers.