Last night there was a Law and Order episode on TV that was clearly based on the Whitey Bulger-Boston FBI scandal. It got me thinking about that case, so imagine my surprise when, this morning, I read a story tangentially involved in it. Turns out that the brother-in-law of the convicted agent, John Connolly, is one of twevle guys indicted on federal racketeering charges which, interestingly, involve a Costa Rica-based sportsbook.
From the Boston Globe:
A sweeping federal racketeering indictment unsealed yesterday charges Arthur Gianelli, brother-in-law of convicted former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr., with running a lucrative gambling ring and trying to bully the owners of three area bars into selling the bars to him and his partners.
The indictment, the latest chapter in an effort by state and federal authorities to further weaken the Mafia’s loosening grip in Greater Boston, alleges that Gianelli’s gambling ring thrived because he paid the New England mob for protection.
Yesterday’s indictment, unsealed in US District Court in Boston, added hundreds of new charges and nine additional defendants to an indictment of Gianelli, 47, and three other men by a federal grand jury in January. That earlier indictment charges the four men with plotting to burn down the Big Dog Sports Grille, a North Reading bar, in 2003 to intimidate the owners into selling them another bar in Lynnfield.
The new charges — which include racketeering, extortion, and money laundering — stem from various criminal enterprises that Gianelli and his associates allegedly ran from 1999 to the present, including an illegal Internet gambling operation aided by an offshore company.
…
The indictment alleges that Gianelli’s group was making money illegally from football betting cards, video poker machines, and Internet gambling. The ring allegedly paid an offshore gambling company — Weshtod Consultants, with offices in San Jose, Costa Rica — to take bets from Massachusetts customers, both on the Internet, at www.dukesportsweb.com, and over the telephone.
Todd Westerman, 41, of San Jose, owner of Weshtod Consultants, is charged in the indictment, along with his company, with running the offshore gambling office and taking bets from Gianelli’s customers in Massachusetts.
He was arrested Sunday by customs agents at the airport in Miami.
Assistant US Attorney Fred Wyshak, who is prosecuting the case, said the use of an offshore office makes it more difficult for law enforcement agencies to detect and prosecute the activities of illegal gambling organizations.
”The use of offshore gambling offices is a new trend and one that needs to be addressed in the criminal courts of this country,” he said.
Obviously, this case is bigger than Internet gaming, but I think it is the first federal prosecution of a foreign sportsbook since the March Madness prosecutions of 1998. It seems like there was a pretty direct connection between the Boston racketeers (alleged) and the online book, and the operator was apparently actually living in the US, so it is a far murkier case than the World Sports Exchange one, where Jay Cohen went to prison for running a legal sportsbook in Antigua.