13 years after UIEGA indictment, Antiguan man arrested for operating illegal site

[The Buzz]

Thirteen years after being indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston, Richard Sullivan, a 73-year-old Antigua native, was arrested on 20 August at JFK Airport in New York for allegedly running Sports Offshore, a $22 million illegal offshore sports betting operation licensed in Antigua operating in the U.S.

From the DOJ press release:

This prosecution marked one of the first times that individuals were charged with violating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), and the first in Massachusetts. The UIGEA statute was enacted in 2006 to deter the use of the U.S. banking system to pay Internet gambling debts incurred by U.S. citizens. Sullivan and his co-defendants are charged with over 75 counts of engaging in U.S. banking transactions involving U.S.-based gamblers to pay gambling debts owed to Sports Offshore.

According to the indictment, Sullivan and his three co-conspirators – Todd Lyons, Robert Eremian and Daniel Eremian – operated Sports Offshore, an online gambling site licensed in Antigua that was actually operating in the United States, conducting an illegal gambling business that stretched from Massachusetts to Florida. It is alleged that Sports Offshore used an Internet site and toll-free telephone line registered in Antigua to service United States customers. The ring also allegedly employed approximately 50 gambling agents in the United States, who solicited hundreds of customers and collected gambling debts, forwarding the illegal gambling proceeds to Antigua.

Read more here: https://gpwa.org/article/antigua-man...ng-ring-253263