Man Pleads Guilty In US Internet Gambling Crackdown

Man Pleads Guilty In US Internet Gambling Crackdown
By Samuel Rubenfeld

A payment processor for the Internet gambling industry pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to charges that he assisted in an alleged scheme to deceive U.S. banks into processing hundreds of millions of dollars in online poker transactions, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

Ira Rubin pleaded guilty Tuesday to money laundering, bank and wire fraud, and gambling offenses. He faces up to 55 years in prison, and is scheduled ot be sentenced on May 17.

A lawyer for Rubin declined to comment to Dow Jones Newswires.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, when announcing the plea deal, said in a statement that Rubin helped process payments for three of the largest companies — Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker — by disguising transactions so they’d appear to be on behalf of non-gamblers selling clothing, jewelry and other items.

“Because U.S. banks were largely unwilling to process Internet gambling payments, companies turned to third party payment processors, including Rubin, who were willing to disguise the payments so they would appear to be unrelated to internet gambling,” the statement said.

Between 2008 and March 2011, Absolute Poker used Rubin at various times to process e-checks disguised as, among other things, payroll processing, affiliate marketing and online electronics merchants, Bharara said.

Rubin committed the offenses while in Costa Rica, where he had been living since 2008, Bharara said. He was detained in Guatemala on April 26, 2011, and then transferred to the U.S.

He was indicted along with 10 others in an April 2011 poker crackdown that became known in the industry as “Black Friday.” An expert said to Corruption Currents following the indictment that the scandal could bring clarity to gambling rules pertaining to anti-money laundering regulations.

Four of Rubin’s co-defendants have appeared in the U.S., two of whom have pleaded guilty. The other two are scheduled to go to trial on April 9. The remaining co-defendants are at large.