Last Monday, a force of more than 300 police offices and investigators from the Jerusalem and Southern District Assessors Offices raided the homes of 36 suspects nationwide. Scores of gamblers have been summoned for questioning, and property worth tens of millions of shekels has been seized.
In a statement released on Monday, The Israel Police National Economic Crimes Unit and the online gambling taskforce have darkened the screens of online betting site betbet.us a formerly bet555.net online casino site, which generated $90 million dollars revenue since May 2007. During the early hours over 300 police officers and tax authority officials performed coordinated raids at homes of 37 suspected gamblers and seized assets worth tens of millions of money.
An elaborate hi-tech support network enabled the site's ongoing operation, police said, including a Web site construction team, a technical support team, and betting agents. The original investigation had launched due to suspicions over money laundering and organized crime. The possibility of more serious, violent crimes stemming from the gambling operation.
The police said that online gambling is one of the main activities of organized crime gangs in Israel. It also leads to other serious crimes, including extortion, violence, money laundering, tax evasion, and harming the public coffers.
In early 2008, intelligence was obtained that the chief suspect, a 38-year old resident of Or Yehuda was operating an online gambling site, bet555.net. The investigation found that the site had a turnover of hundreds of millions of shekels during the two and a half years that it was in operation. Profits rose from an initial 3 percent of turnover to more than 5 percent, amounting to millions of shekels. 70 million transactions were made on the website between April 2007 and June 2009, including both entering the website and placing of bets.
Twenty court orders authorizing the Tax Authority to seize the vehicles and assets of suspects had been made available before the raid, and 160 bank accounts have been frozen. "We employed techniques to monitor the Web site that are very similar to eavesdropping, Internet gambling is one of the severe crime phenomena among Israeli crime organizations, It brings with it other forms of serious crimes, like aggravated extortion, violence,money laundering, tax offenses, and theft of moneys from public funds." a police said.
In a statement released on Monday, The Israel Police National Economic Crimes Unit and the online gambling taskforce have darkened the screens of online betting site betbet.us a formerly bet555.net online casino site, which generated $90 million dollars revenue since May 2007. During the early hours over 300 police officers and tax authority officials performed coordinated raids at homes of 37 suspected gamblers and seized assets worth tens of millions of money.
An elaborate hi-tech support network enabled the site's ongoing operation, police said, including a Web site construction team, a technical support team, and betting agents. The original investigation had launched due to suspicions over money laundering and organized crime. The possibility of more serious, violent crimes stemming from the gambling operation.The police said that online gambling is one of the main activities of organized crime gangs in Israel. It also leads to other serious crimes, including extortion, violence, money laundering, tax evasion, and harming the public coffers.
In early 2008, intelligence was obtained that the chief suspect, a 38-year old resident of Or Yehuda was operating an online gambling site, bet555.net. The investigation found that the site had a turnover of hundreds of millions of shekels during the two and a half years that it was in operation. Profits rose from an initial 3 percent of turnover to more than 5 percent, amounting to millions of shekels. 70 million transactions were made on the website between April 2007 and June 2009, including both entering the website and placing of bets.
Twenty court orders authorizing the Tax Authority to seize the vehicles and assets of suspects had been made available before the raid, and 160 bank accounts have been frozen. "We employed techniques to monitor the Web site that are very similar to eavesdropping, Internet gambling is one of the severe crime phenomena among Israeli crime organizations, It brings with it other forms of serious crimes, like aggravated extortion, violence,money laundering, tax offenses, and theft of moneys from public funds." a police said.
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