DOJ says No USA Gambling Accounts Unfrozen

Posted 6/2/11 :

But Full Tilt has a different take on the situation
 
The US Department of Justice has denied that it has unfrozen any accounts to enable companies impacted by the Black Friday indictments to refund US players.
 
The denial comes in the wake of widespread reports that the Department had unfrozen certain accounts in order for US player refunds to be made by online poker companies Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker.
 
A spokeswoman for the US Attorney’s Office told EGR this week that contrary to widespread media reports, none of the accounts listed in the 15 April indictments had been unfrozen, and that any such action would be accompanied by an official press release; none have been made.
 
However, a Full Tilt Poker source told EGR that one of the company's Irish corporate bank accounts that had not been the subject of the US indictments had been unilaterally frozen by the bank, and that the American enforcement authorities had contacted the bank to get the account in question freed.
 
This account had now been unfrozen, the source revealed.
 
The US Attorney's Office was unable to confirm this, and a spokeswomen said that she was "unable to speculate about future events" when asked whether indicted accounts might be unfrozen to secure player payments.
 
The unidentified Full Tilt source originally told EGR that FTP had been able to access a sum amounting to more than one third of the funds owed to players.
 
“The bank was not one of those subject to the Department of Justice freezing order, but the DoJ did need to call the Bank of Ireland to get it unfrozen,” he explained this week.
 
“After Black Friday, the bank took it upon itself to freeze the account, and in order to convince them to reopen it we needed to go through the DoJ.”
 
The Bank of Ireland has refused to comment.