In 2015 through 2016, The New York Times, together with the PBS series ‘Frontline’, investigated illegal gambling in the Internet age. Frontline utilized parts of my journalistic research in this documentary ‘The Fantasy Sports Gamble’ (full film).
In 2012, 25 Pinnaclesports.com employees were arrested and charged by U.S.A authorities in 2012. According to by the District Attorney’s Office in Queens County, the charges were corruption, money laundering, and conspiracy in connection with what federal authorities say is an illegal sports betting ring that’s netted more than $50 million nationwide since April 2011.
According to the Feds, the Curacao based American Stanley Tomchin was a top player in a national gambling ring with suspected mob ties. He partnered with Brandt England of Las Vegas and George Molsbarger of Santa Monica. Tomchin and his pinnaclesports.com partners owned and operated a sports betting website named pinnaclesports.com, fromout of the Curacao Holiday Beach Hotel and Casino on the Pater Euwensweg 31, illegally sublicensed by Egamingholder Cyberluck and managed by trustcompan Curacao Trust Management N.V. , trying to dodge U.S. gambling laws by using offshore wire accounts and a complicated scheme of bounced transactions between computer servers in the USA, Costa Rica and Panama, according to the officials.
The criminal organisation was also allegedly responsible for holding and divvying out large sums of cash in order to avoid wire transfers or credit card transactions. Seventeen agents and partners got convicted in 2015. Yet Pinnacle’s criminal activities fromout of Curacao did not stop.
The PBS documentary exposes continuing extensive and advanced criminal activities of unregulated and illegal offshore online gambling from Curaçao onto the USA market in 2016 (from up minute 19.55, the documentary makers follow their leads into Curacao.).