Italian Luigi Tancredi is accused by police to be an ‘indispensable link between organized crime and the globe of information technology.’
Italian police have broken up a illegal gambling ring with alleged links to the Mafia and the controversial on-line poker room DollaroPoker.net.
Eleven people were arrested on Wednesday and accused of running an illegal network of some 12,000 online gaming and lottery video clip terminals in pubs, cafes, and gaming halls throughout Italy, some of which were allegedly Mafia-controlled.
The terminals provided access to the online site Dollaro Poker, among other gaming sites.
Police seized assets worth €10 million from the group, which is considered 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 really a direct Mafia member, Tancredi was said by prosecutors to be the ‘indispensable link between organized crime plus the realm of information technology.’
He is accused of having strong ties with club player casino no deposit bonus codes nov 2017 the Camorra that is naples-based clan which he is said to have compensated between €45,000 and €60,000 each month from profits of the ring to install machines on the premises.
Also arrested was their business partner Nicola Femia, a alleged employer regarding the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta organized crime syndicate.
In 2013, both men were investigated by police for their links to 33 unlawful gambling that is online, including Dollaro, which Tancredi was accused of running. Those costs had been ultimately dismissed by a court in Bologna.
Dollaro Dogged by Rumors
If you are wondering why you have never ever heard of Dollaro, it’s likely since the site is used mainly by Italian players and it is not even managed in Italy. The site had benefited significantly from the market that is italian 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 behave in a way that is similar affiliates.
Many Italians will visit cafes or clubs to gamble online, giving their deposit to a representative, 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.
Your website, which purports to currently be the 13th biggest in the planet according to traffic data it submits to PokerScout.com itself, provides these agents a large share of its income.
‘More Profitable Than Drug Trafficking’
It’s a model that is hugely successful at attracting weak players, and weak players, it seems, are that Dollaro is interested in. Winning players have actually in the past complained on poker forums of their records instantly being deleted, or of funds mysteriously disappearing to the ether after money out demands.
There have also been whispers on poker forums of Mafia connections, which were unconfirmed before the developments of this week.
Police said Wednesday that Dollaro is situated in Romania and operated from servers located in Tampa, Florida. Italian Finance Police Colonel Alessandro Cavalli told reporters that wiretaps on suspects had recorded alleged Mob figures commenting that the continuing 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, using 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 stage that is main 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 in the stage, but all optical eyes were centered on the two frontrunners, billionaire Donald Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
The two had displayed a congenial relationship during their respective promotions, 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 directly to run for president even because he was created in Canada while his parents were in that country on business.
‘we guess the ‘bromance’ is over,’ Trump said on CNN after the 2.5-hour debate.
Cruz Attacks New York
With Cruz closing in on Trump in Iowa (the first state that is primary will formally begin the nomination process on Monday, February 1st), the Texan decided to get following the businessman for being born and bred in the largely politically liberal metropolis that is New York City.
But their choice of terms came across as sneering and even a tad condescending.
‘Not a lot of conservatives emerge from Manhattan,’ Cruz opined as he cited Trump’s more left-leaning views in previous decades. ‘Donald comes from New York and embodies New York values.’
Trump was ready for the attack, and called on the city’s 9/11 disaster and subsequent rebuilding in his response.
‘I saw something which no place on Earth could have managed more beautifully, more humanely than New York,’ Trump reacted. ‘The people in New York fought and fought and fought.
‘ We rebuilt downtown Manhattan and everybody in the global world viewed and everyone on earth loved ny and loved New Yorkers,’ Trump stated. ‘And I need certainly to tell you, which was a very statement that is insulting Ted made.’
There clearly was doubt that is little 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 gymnasium bags and, by God, walked over the Brooklyn Bridge on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, or most of the way downtown from all 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 employment of a center finger in the appropriate position, that your news site Tweeted out.
Can It on Canada
The other heated exchange came when Trump questioned whether Cruz is legally allowed to become the nation’s commander in chief.
‘ If you then become the nominee, who the hell understands if you may even serve in the office?’ Trump asked.
‘Since September, the Constitution hasn’t changed, but the poll figures have,’ Cruz responded in protecting his right that is legal to.
One eligibility requirement to be president is that the candidate must be a natural born citizen. Nonetheless, if a youngster is born internationally to citizens that are american he or she is still considered to be an obviously born US citizen, in line with the Constitution.
Stats Talk
According to news site Real Clear Politics, Trump spoke the most terms throughout the debate, followed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio and then Cruz. Many political analysts believe it’s a three-horse race at this point.
Previous frontrunner Dr. Ben Carson talked the least by far, with all the former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon taking not as much as eight percent associated with the debate airtime that is total.
Trump as soon as again declared himself the debate winner, but voters will have the last say. Iowa Republicans cast their votes in just two weeks.
Céline Dion’s Husband, René Angélil, Dies at Home in Las Vegas
René Angélil and Céline Dion. Angélil passed away 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 former supervisor of nevada perennial Céline Dion, has died after a long fight with neck cancer. He was 73.
Angélil had been ill for numerous years. Their cancer was first diagnosed in 1999, yet his 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 into a worldwide superstar, Caesars Palace announced that the singer’s forthcoming shows during the Colosseum Theater had been canceled until February 23rd.
Dion is understood to have spent the previous few months caring for her husband, whom she described in an interview that is recent ‘the just boyfriend I ever endured.’
Céline’s Mentor
René Angélil had been born in Montreal in 1942 to a Syrian father and a mother that is lebanese-canadian. He initially had a singing career of their very own, together with his band ‘Les Baronets,’ which mainly recorded French-language covers of American and British hits.
Later, he managed various artists that are canadian before meeting Dion in 1980, whenever she had been only 12, and declaring her a star, her voice reportedly moving him to tears.
In 1981, he mortgaged his home to fund 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 an elaborate ceremony that was telecast globally. Throughout her increase to superstardom that is global Dion has described her husband as a guiding light and mentor.
Angélil’s gambling habits have long been a source of fascination for the news. He claimed he became a gambler that is professional the late eighties when Dion took a rest from her career to learn English, and which he had a ‘winning system’ for blackjack.
Love of Gambling
But in 2007, former Las Vegas mayor-turned-Caesars-exec Jan Jones claimed that Angélil gambled $1 million a week. She later retracted the statement, stating that she was speaking hypothetically.
With Angélil’s authorization, Caesars took the uncommon step of releasing details of its customer’s losses, which between 2005 and 2006 totaled exactly $230,300. This was, nonetheless, offset by poker winnings of $259,079.
Angélil was an enthusiastic poker player and a standard fixture regarding the Las Vegas poker tournament scene, and appeared in WSOP and WPT television broadcasts throughout the years.
‘It is impractical to overstate the effect René and of course Céline have had on the reputation for activity in Las Vegas as well as Caesars Palace, with their audacious eyesight regarding her residency, now 13 years and counting,’ Gary Selesner, president of Caesars Palace, said in a statement on Thursday.
‘René was truly an amazing individual, showman and businessman, and over these many years became a loved and cherished member associated with the Caesars Palace family members.’