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A federal judge on Tuesday froze more than $28 million in a bank account owned by a prominent Curacao-based businessman. Prosecutors say Robertico Alejandro dos Santos, the half-brother of Curacao Finance Minister George Jamaloodin, is suspected of selling millions of dollars in forged lottery tickets through his gambling businesses in Curacao and St. Maarten known as “Robbie’s Lottery”.
Prosecutors allege that Dos Santos accumulated more than $52 million in illegal profits through the scheme dating back to 2004.
Prosecutors said they’ve established dos Santos’s control over three companies—Ponsford Overseas Ltd., Carribean Investment Group Ltd., Tula Finance Ltd.—with assets of about $28 million at UBS.
Dos Santos’s companies, Jamaroma Lotteries in St. Maarten and Administratiekantoor Dollar NV in Curacao, generated less than $600,000 in profits in 2009, according to tax returns and business records cited in court documents.
Curacao, a long time hub for online gambling operations that has lost some of its luster in recent years, asked US officials for assistance in this matter.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly asked the Justice Department for additional legal arguments on her authority to issue a restraining order per a request from a foreign government. This was permitted after prosecutors advised of a law passed through Congress last year that grants the US Justice Department greater authority to seek freeze orders asked for by other nations.
Dos Santos has denied any wrongdoing.
- Chris Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
