News

Tuesday, 10 May 2011 00:47

The Costa Rican headquarters of PokerStars and Absolute Poker have been raided by police in an evidence gathering operation apparently in response to US federal investigations.

Since the United States effectively prohibited online gambling several years ago, it has fought an endless battle with external jurisdictions that allow online gambling operators to set up their headquarters. The most recent dispute with Antigua and Barbuda, who have dragged the World Trade organisation into the fray is one that could rage for some time. Another country that is close by and has been housing several online gambling firms is Costa Rica.

In what appears to be a backlash from the recent indictments against three major online poker companies in the US, police in Costa Rica executed raids on offices belonging to PokerStars and that of Bianca Gaming who own Absolute Poker and also UB Poker. Search warrants were obtained by the OIJ (Organismo Investigacion Judicial) who sent their agents out to break down the doors of around six properties that included residential homes as well as the offices of citizens connected online poker. The reason given for the raids was to gather evidence of any wrongdoing of those companies and their top level employees.

Reports in the newspaper Poker Players revealed that Costa Rican police decided to go ahead with the raids over concerns that the online poker companies had not been paying the salaries owed to their employees. It is alleged that Bianca Gaming owes a staggering $2,750,000 in employees' wages. The head of the Costa Rican office of UB Poker has threatened Paul Leggett, UB's chief executive, that unless the wages are paid to the employees he would tell all he knew to FBI agents currently in Costa Rica working on the solidification of their case against the poker companies.

Brent Beckley and Scott Tom are the two of the principal members of Absolute Poker who are named in the Federal indictments. They are based on Costa Rica and are being sought by the authorities. They were not at home when they were raided by police.

The Costa Rican customer support offices of PokerStars were included in the police raids, although there has since been a statement to say that any issues have been resolved. They expect their offices to return to normal business shortly and believe the raids were undertaken in response to the problems that were being experienced by some other companies within the industry that were based locally.