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FBI Arrests Neteller Execs
Alcibaides writes "In a follow-up to the 2006 law attacking Internet gambling, the FBI arrested two former Neteller executives in 'connection with the creation and operation of an Internet payment services company that facilitated the transfer of billions of dollars of illegal gambling proceeds.' Apparently, the execs were 'ambushed' as they passed through the U.S. on connecting flights. Consequently, Neteller has dropped all gambling-related activity to U.S. customers, a move not expected for several months."
The warmaking industry is apparently a far safer place for an executive to be. After all, their products are only being used to kill people. It's not like they're offering a completely voluntary service like gambling, which of course is among the most terrible things that can be done. I mean, how dare somebody be given the ability to spend their money as they choose!
It is worrisome how the US is trying to enforce its law on the whole world.
Many companies/people operate fully within the law of the land they live in. If this is breaking a US law, then the US should work with that government to harmonize the laws.
This is similar to how Muslim courts found danish cartoonist guilty of depicting mohammed, and condemned them to death.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Leaving aside for a moment the ridiculous two faced nature of American anti-gambling laws, this is just beyond a joke. As I understand it, the two former execs in question had left the company before the SAFE Port Act was passed. So they've been arrested for setting up a company that is 100% legal in their country of origin, and was legal at the time in the USA as well (in fact, it's still legal for non-gambling related payments), and they no longer have anything to do with the company in question, aside from still holding shares.
"Land of the free", huh? I'm lost for words. The American legal system is just a joke.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Not only that, if the linked article is accurate, it doesn't seem that they broke the laws while in the United States. US citizens and banks did. They seem to have simply offered a service online; the service was even based outside the US.
This also serves to point out another problem with US laws--they are so damn imprecise, broad, so encompassing, that it's simply up to the prosecution to pick and choose who they want to send to prison. Prosecutorial discretion, usually leveraged wisely, has now just become another tool to further political goals and new types of discrimination.
This is like an American posting on an internet site hosted in Germany something that flies against hate speech laws in Germany from his home computer. Then, while traveling in Germany on a connecting flight to Italy, getting arrested. Ridiculous...and dangerous--this sets up the possibility of backlash as precedent for US citizens traveling to foreign countries to be arrested for "crimes" that were not illegal and performed in the US but flies in the face of foreign laws.
Why would an online casino stack the deck? They make money no matter who wins. The more people playing, the more money they make. If players suspected any sort of Tom-foolery they might leave. The casinos have way more to lose than they have to gain by doing it.
The only wrinkle in this case is that it is my understanding they committed the offense while not in the US.
The only wrinkle?! That's the difference between not committing a crime and committing one!