MD Investigation Expands to Other Online Poker Groups
Gambling911.com can confirm that an ongoing investigation being conducted by the US Attorney's Office out of Baltimore has expanded beyond a single online gambling company.
Federal authorities last October filed money-laundering charges against two men, Edward Courdy and Michael Garone, and seized $24 million of funds processed on behalf of the online gambling industry.
Last week the Baltimore US Attorney's office announced the filing of additional affidavit warrants, all of which have been sealed.
According to the City Paper report, in late July, the contents of three other bank accounts were seized. In those cases, the accounts were said to be in the name of Electracash, Inc., a payment-processing service. Numerous calls and messages left by City Paper for Electracash's director of marketing, Richard Cornejo, have gone unreturned. In prior court filings, investigators have said that Electracash is owned by Edward Courdy, who was charged with money-laundering last year in Maryland. Courdy's attorney, Stanley Greenberg, declined to comment.
Gambling911.com can now confirm that Electracash has not had any relationship with Bodog. Instead we can reveal that Electracash is processing for other online gambling ventures, including Internet poker.
We first reported two months ago that the Baltimore office was stepping up its investigation.
"It is going to get much worse," our source revealed this week.
Electracash is an eCash processing company that claims it has a policy not to process transactions for online poker sites, "businesses who facilitate online gambling (i.e., casinos, poker, wagering)".
Costigan Media, the parent company of Gambling911.com, was awarded a precedent-setting decision in a New York Circuit Court last month to have warrant affidavits and other court documents unsealed as part of a New York US Attorney's Office investigation into online poker payment processors. As part of that ruling, the New York office must notify the honorable Judge Laura Taylor Swain in advance of any upcoming indictments in order that Gambling911.com can report on them and pass said information on to its colleagues in the online gambling electronic media sector.
Gambling911.com has relied on various "inside" sources to gather information pertaining to the Baltimore matter, however, much of the news has been scarce, relating mostly to the stages of the investigation.
We are learning that news could be coming in much quicker.
Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
