 |
10/23/09 - The Baltimore City Paper reports that federal enforcement officials in Maryland continue to pursue Internet cash processor Electracash Inc., recently the subject of financial seizure orders based on allegations of processing online gambling transactions (see previous InfoPowa reports)
"This time, the Feds are going after evidence of gambling-related communications in Electracash's e-mail account with New York-based Intermedia," the newspaper claims, publishing copies of court orders to support its report.
The latest seizure warrant was signed by U.S. District Court magistrate judge James Bredar on October 9, and was entered Wednesday on the federal courts online database, PACER. Like prior bank-account seizure warrants in the investigation, the sworn affidavit supporting the e-mail seizure is sealed.
The investigator who applied for the e-mail warrant, Richard S. Gunn, is an Anne Arundel County police detective and task-force officer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Gunn was the affiant in August seizures of Forshay Enterprises bank accounts. Forshay, like Electracash, is in the payment-processing business, as is HMD, Inc., whose bank accounts also were seized in August.
IRS criminal investigator Randall Carrow, in a 2008 affidavit, claimed Electracash was owned by Edward Courdy, who along with Michael Garone was charged with money-laundering last year.
Courdy and Garone appear to be the only defendants charged in the investigation, and neither has been called to appear in court to answer to the charges, which were filed in July 2008.
The U.S. government filed forfeiture proceedings last year to keep nearly $10 million seized from Courdy and more than $14 000 000 seized from Garone. Earlier this year, Courdy was granted the return of $200 000 of his seized funds, though the government has kept all of Garone's funds.
http://www.citypaper.com/digest.asp?id=19169
