Two Irish subsidiaries of the American online poker site Full Tilt Poker have been called up as defendants in the case accusing the poker group of using $440 million of players’ funds to pay off its board members and owners.
Preet Bharara, a US attorney brought the case to a New York court earlier this week.He accused Full Tilt Poker of using $440 million of players’ funds in order to pay a number of its directors including Howard Lederer, Raymond Bitar, Rafael Furst and Christopher Fergurson. Bharara claims that between April 2001 and 201, $41 million was given to Bitar, $42 million to Lederer and $11.7 million to Furst.
Irish connection
Pocket Kings Consulting Ltd and Pocket Kings Ltd, both of which are Full Tilt Poker companies based in Ireland, have been put on the defendant list, which was included by Bharara in the formal complaint he filed in the court.
Located in Cherrywood, Dublin, Pocket Kings is responsible for providing customer and management services, IT and software to the poker group. The Irish based company employs about 800 people. However, due to the suspension of gambling licenses by Channel Island regulators, which has caused websites to close, around 250 of those jobs could be lost.
The director of both Pocket Kings Ltd and Pocket Kings Consulting Ltd has been named as MrBitar. Bitar is also a Pocket Kings Ltd shareholder and a director of Tiltware.
Charge amendment
In April, Full Tilt Poker was charged with bank fraud and money laundering. Bharara wants the charges held against the poker company to be amended. Last week he said in a statement that Full Tilt Poker was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme.
Bharara accused the poker group of misleading its players over the safety of their money and cheating them out of their funds. He also explained how Full Tilt had assured its players that their money was kept separate from the company’s money. However, this was later found out not to be the case.
Low funds
Investigations discovered that by the end of March, Full Tilt owed its players around the world $390 million, $150 million of which was owed to US citizens alone. However, in its bank account was found only $60 million.
Mr Lederer told his associates in June that only $6 million was remaining in the account. He then warned latern that a number of clients were asking for their money to be returned and that there would be issues reaching even $5 million for those cases.
A statement released by Bharara’s office said, “Much of the money that was distributed was transferred by the board members and owners to accounts in Switzerland and other overseas locations.”
The allegations have not yet been tried by the court, as they are accusations only.