Скачать или смотреть USA: NEW YORK: POLICE CRACK GAMBLING RING

(25 Aug 1995) English/Nat

Police in New York have busted an illegal gambling operation potentially worth 65 (m) million U-S dollars a year.

The gambling ring used computer software to keep track of bets on sporting events.

Police believe it has ties to one of New York City's organised crime families.

In the latest success of a five-year war against gambling controlled by organised crime, New York police smashed a sports-betting ring potentially worth 65 (m) million U-S dollars a year.

SOUNDBITE:
During the last several weeks, officers from my office conducted 26 raids on locations here in New York City and in Florida. They seized three quarters of a million (m) dollars in cash and arrested 19 people.
SUPER CAPTION: Charles Hynes, Kings County District Attorney

Along with the money, police seized jewellery, several New York homes, and a number of weapons.

They also confiscated computer equipment that they say was an essential part of the operation.

The sports betting ring was disguised as a mail-order house and which made about 180-thousand U-S dollars a day taking bets on professional and college sports.

SOUNDBITE:
Sports betting is organized crime's cash cow, funding its other illegal activities from hijacking to the importation and distribution of narcotics.
SUPER CAPTION: Charles Hynes, Kings County District Attorney

Computers kept the book-makers in touch with legal on-line betting services in Las Vegas.

The services provide instant information on sports handicapping, as well as other details to help determine odds.

The computers also kept records for individual bets, replacing the traditional hand-written betting slips that have become the book-maker's trademark.

Book makers faxed information to each other instead of carrying betting slips from place to place.

Authorities were able to intercept dozens of illicit betting transactions.

These high-tech developments may signal a new trend for organised crime.

SOUNDBITE:
The day of the bookmaker is coming to an end. It is being replaced by computers.
SUPER CAPTION: Charles Hynes, Kings County District Attorney

The crackdown on illegal gambling is partly intended to discourage an enterprise that pumps billions of dollars into an underground economy - money the government can't get to.

SOUNDBITE:
The betting public has got to understand that all of this cash up here, there's not a nickel of it taxed, at a time when we've had job losses and cuts in programs, it's outrageous that this is allowed to continue without some response from government.
SUPER CAPTION: Charles Hynes, Kings County District Attorney

Investigators said they were surprised that such a low-level operation could make so much money.

District Attorney Hynes called the suspects "a bunch of nobodies".

But the nobodies apparently raked in a fortune before they were arrested.

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...