Online Gambling Bust Pays for One Texas Police Department

The Plano City, Texas police department assisted the IRS and FBI in busting and online gambling ring in 2006 and now it's time to split the assets making them nearly $5 million richer. The defendants in the case have pled guilty and now U.S. Attorney John Bales and IRS Special Agent in Charge Madie Branch had the pleasure of turning over a check for $4,753,841.40 to the police department in a ceremony at its headquarters. Plano police went undercover resulting in the discovering of a much bigger gambling ring operating under a Curacao license. There were 18 Texans that acted as conspirators accepting bets on college and professional sports through 25 different sites hosted in Curacao. "The defendants provided bettors with a personal login code and password to facilitate the placement of wagers through the websites and to disguise their identities. Bettors were then directed to specific websites or to toll free numbers operated by the websites where the bettors placed wagers on sporting events," the Department of Justice said. The gambling ring brought in nearly $1 billion is bets annually and $5.4 billion in total during its operation. More than $200 million in profits were gained over four years. Over $10 million went to the U.S. Government.