Sports Betting Operators Facing a Bleak Holiday Season

Law enforcement authorities in the Suffolk County of New York State were active last month in the run-up to the festive season, according to Associated Press reports. They busted an Internet gambling ring involving an unidentified Costa Rican operator and in the process uncovered a drug network.

17 arrests were made and a million dollars in “illegal” funds were seized in enforcement activity, announced the District Attorney for Suffolk County Thomas Spota, this week. “Fourteen people were arrested on charges of promoting gambling and three others were arrested on charges of conspiracy to possess marijuana.”

“Surveillance activities had established that the gambling ring took in an average of $165,000 a week in sports bets and was focused on professional and collegiate sports with electronic transfers to Costa Rica. They were generating some $8.6 million a year,” said Spota.

Investigators said that the drug bust was a direct consequence of the gambling surveillance exercise. They discovered four men trying to buy 100 pounds of pot for $300,000 in California when they interrupted the plot.

Police started arresting the 16 men and one woman last month. All have since been released and are scheduled to be arraigned in March. Prosecutors said that one man, an attorney from Freeport, has so far eluded arrest on a conspiracy charge and is being sought.

Suffolk County is located in the U.S. state of New York and has a population of a million and a half people. It is the easternmost county in New York State and the New York Metropolitan Area. It was named for the county of Suffolk in England, from which its earliest settlers came. The county seat is Riverhead, though many county offices are in Hauppauge on the west side of the county where most of the population lives.

Suffolk and Nassau counties together are generally referred to as "Long Island" by area residents - as distinct from the New York City boroughs of Queens (Queens County) and Brooklyn (Kings County), which physically make up the island's westernmost end.

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