Disgruntled Employees at Center of Costa Rican Raids on Internet Poker Businesses
A series of raids were conducted by Costa Rican authorities against individuals involved in online poker companies indicted by the US Justice Department on April 15, 2011. These raids appear to be a result of complaints from former employees of UB.com who feared they would not be paid their severances. It did not seem to stem from any directives issued by US prosecutors.
Targets included UB.com, Absolute Poker and PokerStars.com, which all operate in Costa Rica. A third company indicted, Full Tilt Poker, does not operate in the Central American online gambling hub, however, several houses owned by that company’s founder were seized on Thursday.
The raids come just days after the disgruntled head of an employee agency threatened to contact police and complain against executives of UB.com.
The company had received negative press in recent days on local news stations following the release of a "restructuring" memo noting that some 90 percent of the work force would be laid off.
This is not the first time that Costa Rican offices housing online gambling firms have been raided. Most have involved immigration/employee issues. Costa Rica is especially sensitive to violation of employee laws as they relate to the online gamlbing sector following the closure of BetOnSports in 2006, which resulted in the lay off of close to 1000 employees. Most of these employees were not paid their required serverances.
Information remains somewhat sketchy and Gambling911.com is attempting to gather further details.
A video link of the news on this raid can be found here
La policía allanó la mañana de este viernes 6 locales de empresas de pocker por internet que operan en Costa Rica. Los agentes junto con fiscales tenían orden de allanamiento del juzgado penal de Pavas contra al menos 6 lugares entre oficinas y casas de habitación de los vinculados con estas empresas de pocker por internet La acción de la policía obedece a una acusación de la fiscalía de New York y de la corte de Manhattan contra 3 sitios de pocker por internet que operan o tienen su sede en el país, estos lugares son allanados por los delitos de lavado de dinero, fraude bancario y juego ilegal. A raíz de esto y de las publicación de Telenoticias la fiscalía emprendió sus investigaciones y por eso decidió allanar estos lugares ubicados en Escazú, Santa Ana y Rohmoser.
