Is There Mafia Involvement with Paradise Bet?
December 28, 2009
There is a long running story that the mafia built Las Vegas and Atlantic City, and that they have had their fingers in gambling ever since. Whether this is actually true or not, law enforcement officials have spent decades trying to weed out the alleged mafia from their gambling ties. In some cases they have made arrests and supposedly linked mafia to the various gambling entities, but for some reason this same diligence to weeding them out has not really been found in the online gambling market.
But that would appear that it is changing as well. According to the United Kingdom, they have closed down Paradise Bet as they suspect Mafia ties to the online gambling site. The online gambling firm is based in the UK but they have suspended their license and frozen their assets based on the assumption that they do in fact have Mafia ties.
According to the government the online gambling site has been linked to the Parisi crime family and they have been investigating them for almost three years. The government seized more than 600 bank accounts and other assets that totaled more than 200 million pounds. They also arrested 74 people in conjunction with the site including the head of the Parisi Clan – Savino Parisi.
Allegedly the ties run even deeper with connections between several politicians and businessmen and the accusations go from online gambling to drug trafficking, loan sharking, money laundering and attempted murder. Obviously if this is true, those opposed to online gambling would use this example as one more reason why it should not be legalized as it only serves to strengthen their position.
