Bookies Behaving Badly Part 11: Wu Done It? Forensic Files and The Greek

Bookies Behaving Badly is back!  This enormously popular series kicks off the new season with “Wu Done It? Forensic Files and The Greek”.

It’s Forensic Files meets one of the first and most successful offshore sportsbooks, The Greek.com (formerly known as Olympic Sports).

To be clear, The Greek is the good guy here.  Spiros “The Greek” bookmaking business it turns out helped to solve a brutal triple homicide.

The case was profiled on the wildly popular “Forensic Files”, which ended its run a few years ago but continues to live on in repeats on HLN (and some other cable networks). The story originally aired on Tru TV in 2010.

Description of the Forensic Files episode:

A woman notices three young, Caucasian Verona WI men involved in what appears to be a "road-rage" altercation with a young Asian man. Later, while she had been watching a TV news show, it's déjà vu - all over again. Only in this sighting, there are no angry scenes by a car. Jason McGuigan, Daniel Swanson and Dustin Wilson were found murdered in Jason's flat. The witness immediately calls police. After authorities find his auto abandoned in McGuigan's parking lot, the Asian man is identified as Mark Wu. Wu, having suddenly booked a flight for his native Taiwan, becomes an immediate suspect. It is then revealed that each of the men are involved in an offshore gambling operation with McGuigan as a bookie "wanna-be." Wu, a good friend of the three men, won a substantial bet, but McGuigan claimed he had never placed it. Addicted to gambling, Wu wants and needs that winning money. Is Wu responsible for the deaths of his friends, or are the murders the result of other deadly incidents…  

It turns out he is….And The Greek proved this.

Wu and MacGuigan maintained wagering accounts at Olympic Sports (TheGreek.com) and it was the record of bets placed that helped forensics experts eventually track down the killer.  

From the Verona Press:

Wu, whose car was parked at the Verona apartment, was quickly detained as a "material witness" in New York and brought back for a June 30 hearing. He would eventually be charged with all three murders but was never tried because he was found hung in his cell in an apparent suicide the night before his trial was scheduled to begin.

"It led us to some unique legal twists," Coughlin said of the case, noting the use of extradition, detainment in a hotel, exhaustive off-hours work by forensics experts and a group triple the size of his entire department working on the case. "We had over 50 people working on this case at one time for some time."

Wu's sloppy work in covering his tracks didn't make the case difficult. What did was the extraordinary time constraints law enforcement officials were under.

He had already made flight reservations to return to his native Taiwan, which has no extradition treaty with the United States. And police hadn't yet found hard evidence with which to arrest him.

Five days before the murders, Wu gave Jason McGuigan a large sum of money to bet on a professional baseball game.

One game in particular was a major league baseball game -- Pittsburgh verses Cleveland.

That game happened to go 15 innings and lasted about five hours.

And here is where The Greek factored in.

Wu used his cellphone to call The Greek that night to find out which team won and law enforcement was able to trace that call and began working with Athanas’ Jamaican-based sportsbook.

In January 2005, Wu would ultimately take his own life while awaiting trial in prison.   He was found. hanging from a strip of cloth tied to a sprinkler head in his prison cell.

If you haven’t watched, here is your opportunity below.  Sadly, narrator Peter North passed away at the age of 91 back in April.

- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com

PAST INSTALLMENTS OF THIS SERIES

Bookies Behaving Badly Part 1: Wife Shot 13 Times

Bookies Behaving Badly Part 2: This Cross Dresser Once Feasted on Cocaine

Bookies Behaving Badly Part 3: The Lawsuit Edition

Bookies Behaving Badly Part 4: Pay Mob Protection or End Up as 'Trunk Music'

Bookies Behaving Badly Part 5: Shill Edition

Bookies Behaving Badly Part 6: Mark Del Popolo, Attorney at Flaw

Bookies Behaving Badly Part 7: Al Ross Was Bad, His Son Denny Was Worse

Bookies Behaving Badly Part 8: Rogue Ref's Bookies Almost Brought Down NBA

Bookies Behaving Badly Part 9: Hayden Ware, Conman Turned Convict

Bookies Behaving Badly Part 10: Rich Ciarlante Created the Bonus....And His Demise