More Online Gambling Seizures
Authorities have filed seizure warrants for the contents of three bank accounts associated with online gambling companies in recent days according to a report filed by the City Paper out of Baltimore. The Maryland-based federal investigation had initially gone after funds belonging to the online gambling company Bodog last year. The extent of this investigation, including what companies might be part of the investigation, was not immediately known since warrants were all sealed.
The warrants were to be "forfeitable" as "proceeds of an illegal gambling business . . . involved in money laundering transactions." In those filings, the accounts were said to be in the name of HMD, Inc., a company associated with pay-outs from on-line gambling companies. City Paper could not determine how to contact the company.
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.
Costigan Media, which owns the Gambling911.com, was successful in its court action this summer to have sealed warrants unsealed in a New York US Attorney's Office investigation into payment processing firms connected to online poker's largest companies, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.
Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
