
Italian Luigi Tancredi is accused by police of being an ‘indispensable link between organized crime and the global world of information technology.’
Italian police have split up a gambling that is illegal with so-called links to the Mafia and the controversial online poker room DollaroPoker.net.
Eleven people were arrested on Wednesday and accused of operating an illegal network of some 12,000 gaming that is online lottery video terminals in bars, cafes, and gaming halls throughout Italy, some of which were presumably Mafia-controlled.
The terminals provided usage of the site that is online Poker, among other gaming sites.
Police seized assets worth €10 million from the group, which is thought to have handled €11.5 million in bets per day.
A man known as ‘the King of Slots’ from his past involvement in Italy’s legal land-based gambling industry among those arrested was Luigi Tancredi.
Indispensable Link
While not a mafia that is direct, Tancredi was said by prosecutors to be the ‘indispensable link between organized crime and the realm of information technology.’
He is accused of having strong ties with the Naples-based Camorra clan, which he is said to have paid between €45,000 and €60,000 each month from profits of the ring to put in machines on the premises.
Also arrested was his business partner Nicola Femia, a alleged boss associated with Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta organized crime syndicate.
In 2013, both guys had been investigated by police for their links to 33 illegal online gambling sites, including Dollaro, which Tancredi was accused of running. Those charges had been ultimately dismissed by a court in Bologna.
Dollaro Dogged by Rumors
If you’re wondering why you have never heard of Dollaro, it’s most likely because the web site is used primarily by Italian players and it is not really controlled in Italy. The site had benefited significantly from the Italian market’s refusal to legalize cash games until 2011.
It largely uses the ‘agent model,’ in which most for the deposits and withdrawals are controlled by agents who act in a way that is similar affiliates.
Many Italians will visit cafes or clubs to gamble online, giving their deposit to a realtor, who will then load it into an account, bypassing player registration.
In cash (or at least you hope he will) if you win, your agent will pay you.
The site, which purports to currently be the 13th biggest in the entire world according to traffic data it submits to PokerScout.com itself, offers these agents a share that is generous of income.
‘More Profitable Than Drug Trafficking’
It is a model that is hugely successful at attracting weak players, and weak players, it appears, are that Dollaro is interested in. Winning players have actually in the past reported on poker forums of these accounts abruptly being deleted, or of funds mysteriously disappearing to the ether following money out demands.
There are also whispers on poker forums of Mafia connections, which were unconfirmed before the developments of this week.
Police said Wednesday that Dollaro is located in Romania and operated from servers based in Tampa, Florida. Italian Finance Police Colonel Alessandro Cavalli told reporters that wiretaps on suspects had recorded alleged Mob figures commenting that the business was ‘more profitable than drug-trafficking.’
GOP Debate Gets Heated as Trump and Cruz Spar Over ‘Birther’ Claims and NYC Values
Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz went head-to-head during Thursday’s GOP debate, aided by the two leading Republican candidates ready to fight as polls tighten. (Image: news.yahoo.com)
The sixth GOP debate welcomed seven Republican Party candidates to your main stage in Charleston, sc on Thursday night, all sharing hopes and aspirations of accepting the likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton towards becoming the 45th president of the United States.
Seven candidates might have been regarding the stage, but all eyes were centered on the two frontrunners, billionaire Donald Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
The 2 had displayed a relationship that is congenial their respective campaigns, but that ended Thursday night, in component, as Trump honestly confessed, because Cruz has been sneaking up within the polls of late.
Cruz attacked Trump for being truly a Manhattan liberal. Trump challenged Cruz’s right to even run for president because he was born in Canada while his parents were in that country on business.
‘I guess the ‘bromance’ has ended,’ Trump stated on CNN following the debate that is 2.5-hour.
Cruz Attacks New York
With Cruz closing in on Trump in Iowa (the first primary declare that will officially begin the nomination process on Monday, February first), the Texan decided to go after the businessman for being born and bred in the mostly politically liberal metropolis that is nyc.
But their choice of terms came across as sneering and also a tad condescending.
‘Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan,’ Cruz opined as he cited Trump’s more views that are left-leaning past decades. ‘Donald originates from brand New York and embodies New York values.’
Trump was prepared for the attack, and called on the city’s 9/11 disaster and rebuilding that is subsequent their response.
‘I saw something which no spot on Earth could have managed more beautifully, more humanely than New York,’ Trump responded. ‘The people in New York fought and fought and fought.
‘ We rebuilt downtown Manhattan and everybody in the global world watched and everyone in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers,’ Trump said. ‘And I need to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.’
There clearly was little doubt that Trump won the change.
The New York constant News responded morning by having a cover titled ‘Drop Dead, Ted’ and wrote, ‘New York values are the ironworkers who carried their tools in backpacks and fitness center bags and, by God, walked over the Brooklyn Bridge on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, or all the way downtown from most of the way uptown. friday’
The paper’s cover page image to accompany the headline showed a pissed-off Lady Liberty making her emotions for Cruz clear by the usage of a finger that is middle the appropriate position, that your news site Tweeted out.
Can It on Canada
The other exchange that is heated when Trump questioned whether Cruz is legally allowed to become the united states’s commander in chief.
‘ If you feel the nominee, who the hell understands in the event that you can even serve in the office?’ Trump asked.
‘Since September, the Constitution hasn’t changed, but the poll numbers have,’ Cruz responded in defending their right that is legal to.
One eligibility requirement to be president is that the candidate must be an all-natural born citizen. Nevertheless, if a kid is born internationally to American citizens, he or she’s still considered to be a naturally born US citizen, based on the Constitution.
Stats Talk
According to news site Real Clear Politics, Trump spoke many words during the debate, followed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio after which Cruz. Many analysts that are political it’s a three-horse race at this point.
Previous frontrunner Dr. Ben Carson talked the least by far, with the former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon using significantly less than eight percent regarding the debate airtime that is total.
Trump once again declared himself the debate winner, but voters will have the say that is final. Iowa Republicans cast their votes in simply two weeks.
Céline Dion’s Husband, René Angélil, Dies at Home in Las Vegas
René Angélil and Céline Dion. Angélil passed on peacefully at his house in Las Vegas after a battle that is long cancer on January 14th. (Image: linternaute.com)
René Angélil, avid gambler and husband and previous supervisor of nevada perennial Céline Dion, has died after a long struggle with throat cancer. He was 73.
Angélil had been sick for many years. His cancer had been very first diagnosed club player casino no deposit in 1999, yet their death was sudden and unexpected, family and friends said in announcing his passing on Thursday.
As tributes poured into the man credited with transforming Dion as a superstar that is global Caesars Palace announced that the singer’s forthcoming shows at the Colosseum Theater had been canceled until February 23rd.
Dion is understood to have spent the previous couple of months caring for her husband, whom she described in a current interview as ‘the only boyfriend I ever had.’
Céline’s Mentor
René Angélil had been born in Montreal in 1942 to a Syrian father and A lebanese-canadian mother. He initially had a career that is singing of own, along with his band ‘Les Baronets,’ which mainly recorded French-language covers of American and British hits.
Later, he handled various Canadian performers, before fulfilling Dion in 1980, when she was only 12, and declaring her a celebrity, her voice apparently moving him to tears.
In 1981, he mortgaged their house to invest in her album that is first voix du bon Dieu [The Good Lord's Voice], which made her a star in Canada. Angélil and Dion began dating in 1987 and were hitched in 1994 in a ceremony that is elaborate ended up being telecast globally. Throughout her rise to superstardom that is global Dion has described her spouse as a guiding light and mentor.
Angélil’s gambling habits have long been a source of fascination for the media. He claimed he became a gambler that is professional the late eighties when Dion took some slack from her career to learn English, and that he had a ‘winning system’ for blackjack.
Love of Gambling
But in 2007, previous Las Vegas mayor-turned-Caesars-exec Jan Jones claimed that Angélil gambled $1 million per week. She later retracted the declaration, stating that she was speaking hypothetically.
With Angélil’s authorization, Caesars took the step that is unusual of details of its customer’s losses, which between 2005 and 2006 totaled exactly $230,300. This was, nevertheless, offset by poker winnings of $259,079.
Angélil had been a poker that is enthusiastic and a typical fixture regarding the Las Vegas poker tournament scene, and appeared in WSOP and WPT television broadcasts throughout the years.
‘It is impossible to overstate the impact René and of course line that is cé had on the reputation for activity in Las Vegas and at Caesars Palace, with their audacious vision regarding her residency, now 13 years and counting,’ Gary Selesner, president of Caesars Palace, stated in a declaration on Thursday.
‘René had been truly an amazing individual, showman and businessman, and over these many years became a liked and cherished member regarding the Caesars Palace family.’