Posted on 01/17/2007 4:09:32 PM PST by Grig
Saltspring Island resident John Lefebvre hit the jackpot in November 2005 when he cashed in $123 million worth of shares of his offshore company, NETeller Inc., which handles billions of dollars of money transfers for Internet gamblers.
The bonanza enabled him to pursue a life of luxury, including a beach house in Malibu (which actress Jennifer Aniston was also eyeing), and to support various academic, philanthropic and political endeavours, including a $170,000 donation aimed at helping Vision Vancouver's Jim Green win the mayor's chair in the last civic election.
But in a sudden reversal of fortune Monday, Lefebvre, 55, was arrested by FBI agents at his Malibu home and charged with conspiring to promote illegal gambling by transferring billions of dollars of cyberspace bets placed by U.S. citizens with offshore gaming companies.
He was jailed at the Metropolitan Center, the federal holding facility in downtown Los Angeles, and appeared in Los Angeles Court Tuesday afternoon. Bail was set at $5 million US. At press time Tuesday, it was not clear whether he posted that bail.
NETeller co-founder Stephen Eric Lawrence, 46, formerly of Calgary, was also arrested in the U.S. Virgin Islands and similarly charged with transferring funds with the intent to promote illegal gambling. He was to appear in federal court in St. Thomas today.
If convicted, both men face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Based in the Isle of Man, NETeller describes itself as "the largest independent online money transfer business in the world" with more than three million customers in 160 countries, 3,500 merchants and more than $7 billion US in annual transactions. The company's shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market.
In a release Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department said 95 per cent of NETeller's revenues are derived from Internet gaming, and the majority of those revenues come from U.S. residents.
Mark Mershon, FBI assistant director in New York, said the billions of dollars wagered by U.S. citizens with offshore gaming companies, and funnelled through companies like NETeller, "amounts to a colossal criminal enterprise masquerading as legitimate business. . . . The FBI is adamant about shutting off the flow of illegal cash."
Michael Garcia, U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, said that when the two men took their company public in London in 1999 (in a deal brokered by Vancouver-based Canaccord Capital Corp.), they acknowledged in offering documents that Internet gaming, and transferring the proceeds of Internet gaming, were illegal and therefore represented an investment risk.
"Blatant violations of U.S. law are not a mere 'risk' to be disclosed to prospective investors," Garcia said. "Criminal prosecutions related to online gambling will be pursued in cases where assets and defendants are positioned outside of the United States."
The NETeller arrests are the latest in a series of U.S. federal initiatives to combat illegal Internet gaming:
n In July 2003, PayPal (an e-commerce company similar to NETeller) settled charges that it aided illegal offshore gaming by forfeiting $10 million US of ill-gotten gains.
n In May 2006, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment against Antigua-based Worldwide Telesports Inc., owned by Betcorp, a company listed on the Australia Stock Exchange.
n In July 2006, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment against London-based BetonSports PLC. Shockwaves rippled through the Internet gaming community when one of the company's executives, David Carruthers, was arrested by FBI agents at the Fort Worth, Tex., airport en route to Costa Rica, where the company has betting operations, and thrown in jail.
n In September 2006, the U.S. Congress passed legislation specifically prohibiting credit card companies and e-commerce companies such as NETeller from transferring money for Internet gaming purposes.
This initiative sent the share price of publicly trading companies involved in Internet gaming, including NETeller, reeling.
But by this time, Lefebvre and Lawrence had severed most of their ties with the company and had cashed in most of their shares. Their timing appeared impeccable, until Monday's arrests.
Continuing U.S. pressure on offshore gaming operators is causing many other Internet gaming companies to change the way they do business.
One of those companies is Bodog.com, one of the biggest Internet gaming companies in the world. In 2005, it took in $7.3 billion US in wagers, 95 per cent from U.S. residents.
Bodog is owned by part-time Vancouver resident Calvin Ayre, who owns some expensive real estate in the Lower Mainland, including two penthouse apartments in Yaletown.
He also owns Riptown Media, a Vancouver company that provides marketing, advertising and promotion support for Bodog, and Triple Crown Customer Service, a Burnaby call centre for customers who want to set up betting accounts or to ask questions about their accounts.
After Carruthers' arrest in Texas, Ayre cancelled an Internet gaming conference Bodog had planned to hold in Las Vegas. He also stopped travelling to the United States.
In December, he announced he would pull all Bodog's U.S. gaming-related advertising and move the firm's headquarters from Costa Rica to Antigua, which he views as a "safe, reliable and well-regulated jurisdiction."
Ayre is now looking to Europe and Asia, rather than the United States, for future gaming growth, and is diversifying into music, film production and other non-gaming pursuits such as mixed martial arts.
However, his firm continues to take bets from U.S. residents, raising the question as to whether he will be the U.S. Justice Department's next target.
About Us
DeSmogBlog exists to clear the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change.
An overwhelming majority of the world’s climate scientists agree that the globe is warming - the world's climate is changing - and that the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels is to blame. We know that the risks are incalculable and, increasingly, we understand that the solutions are affordable.
Unfortunately, a well-funded and highly organized public relations campaign is poisoning the climate change debate. Using tricks and stunts that unsavory PR firms invented for the tobacco lobby, energy-industry contrarians are trying to confuse the public, to forestall individual and political actions that might cut into exorbitant coal, oil and gas industry profits. DeSmogBlog is here to cry foul - to shine the light on techniques and tactics that reflect badly on the PR industry and are, ultimately, bad for the planet.
The DeSmogBlog team is led by Jim Hoggan, founder of James Hoggan & Associates, one of Canada's leading public relations firms...
The DeSmogBlog team is especially grateful to our benefactor John Lefebvre, a lawyer, internet entrepreneur and past-president of NETeller, a firm that has been providing secure online transactions since 1999. John has been outspoken, uncompromising and courageous in challenging those who would muddy the climate change debate, and he has enabled and inspired the same standard on the blog.
It could also be that the government is adamantly opposed to anyone taking money from the citizenry other than the government itself. It's bad for business...
I'm pretty well sure this has more to do with the financial well-being of the "gaming industry" and their casinos in the U.S. than anything else.
I'm just happy that mommy government is protecting myself from me! (/sarcasm)
Gambling over the internet is risky. If 10 people are playing Texas Hold'Em Poker what's to keep 9 of them from being a single computer programmed to gang up on the one gambler?
A good case to use the forfeiture laws on.
Not ever having gotten the gambling bug, I know little about it, except that the odds are always with the house. I can see the situation you describe as a likely scenario, though.
Seems to me there's an important lesson to be learnt here; never ever piss off Jennifer Aniston. I'll bet Brad is sh*tting bricks.
Somewhere in the penthouse of a Vegas hotel on the strip a fatcat is leaning back in his chair with a wide grin on his face as he lights a fat cigar.
Why take the risk? They make out any way. You can shear a sheep many times but you can only skin him once.
Statement of the National Council on Problem Gambling Regarding Current Internet Gambling Legislation PDF Format.
Saltspring island.. been there a few times, nothing but draft dodgers and bug eating hippies living there...
Pretty much the same on all the gulf Islands between Vancouver Island and the mainland..
I'm from Vancouver Island BTW...
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