Update: Online Poker Targeted by Washington State?

Latest actions result in confiscation of $8 million This week's Forbes magazine brought to us detailed report on the latest federal moves against e-processors in Washington State. Reportedly, in the past few months, the authorities have 'quietly moved' to seize nearly $8 million from financial enterprises that dealt with processing of transactions for major offshore online poker companies like PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker. According to Forbes, four civil forfeiture complaints have been filed in federal court in Seattle since October, causing the federal prosecutors to have seized cash from accounts at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and SunTrust Banks, and belonging to payment processor firms like Arrow Checks, Secure Money, Etegrity Processing, Anaya Trading Solutions and Blue Lake Capital Management and Logistics. The magazine further opines that those actions represent the latest move in the Justice Department's battle against online poker, adding that they follow Washington's State Supreme Court September action, which upheld a 2006 state law that made it a Class C felony to play online poker for money in the state of Washington. In addition, based on the court filings, a special task force got enforcement in shape of the Washington State Gambling Commission and started investigations in January 2009. In terms of the biggest forfeiture case, it was initiated in June 2009 when the task force officer got a tip from a witness that he had received a payout check for their online poker winnings from Arrow Checks. The case involved some $5.1 million and it was filed in December. The court documents reveal that over $20 million of wire transfers have been tracked so far from Canada and Texas to Arrow Checks accounts at Bank of America controlled by Scott Seguin and Justin Sather. It was further specified that players from Washington state who received the checks from Arrow Checks were then contacted, alleging that the money represented came from online poker activities at PokerStars. Therefore, the federal prosecutors claim that Seguin and Sather were operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and violated the federal Wire Act “...because online gambling is illegal in Washington state.” It was also stated in the Forbes article that other payment processors operated six bank accounts at SunTrust and Wells Fargo controlled by one Sanjay Panya, and used to issue checks reportedly coming from poker play at Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. Upon getting additional info from Washington state players they tracked through the processing records, the feds seized $1.3 million in the accounts connected to Panya in November, and stated that he was also operating unlicensed money transmitting business and violating the Wire Act. The court documents point Brian Kenny and Javier Carillo, as facilitators of payments to Washington state residents derived from online poker play at UltimateBet. Also, after the state Supreme Court's September findings, some big companies like Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker decided to pull out of Washington State. Throughout the USA, teams of feds have been prosecuting e-cash processors, and seizures have been reported from Florida and New York as well as Washington State. They have already disrupted hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions.