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News from the Netherlands Antilles
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Antigua gambling firm founder gets 51 months in US prison
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| Published on Thursday, November 5, 2009 | Email To Friend Print Version
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WASHINGTON, USA (Reuters) -- The founder of the defunct online offshore gambling firm BetOnSports, Gary Kaplan, was sentenced to the maximum 51 months in prison for conspiring to violate US racketeering and other laws, the Justice Department said on Tuesday.
Kaplan admitted in court that beginning in the mid- to late 1990s, he set up business entities offshore in Aruba, Antigua and eventually Costa Rica to provide betting services to US residents through Internet Web sites and toll-free telephone numbers.
Kaplan, 50, pleaded guilty to the charges in August and as part of the agreement forfeited almost $44 million which the US government described as proceeds from his criminal activity. He has been incarcerated since March 2007 and the judge in the case in St. Louis could have given him a sentence from 41 to 51 months in prison.
"Kaplan's business model itself was built on a wager that the US could not and would not enforce its anti-sports book laws to reach Kaplan," Michael Reap, the acting US attorney in St Louis, said in a statement. "Today, Kaplan lost that wager."
BetOnSports ceased operations in 2006, and customers lost between $7 million and $20 million, the Justice Department has said.
Some of his Web servers were located in Miami and US customers placed wagers over US telephone lines.
Kaplan in mid-2004 made a successful public offering of the stock of BetOnSports on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market that netted him over $100 million, the Justice Department said. | | | | Reads : 604 | | | |
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