Full Tilt Poker’s Chief Operating Officer, Ray Bitar has reportedly returned to the United States and surrendered himself to the F.B.I. The former Full Tilt Poker exec turned himself into the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York State according to an email that was ‘leaked’ to popular poker forum.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney And FBI Assistant Director-In-Charge announced his arrest in a press release earlier this afternoon.
11 persons in total were indicted last April for allegedly violating the UIGEA and other related activities such as the alleged creation of front companies for the purposes of laundering poker related money.
As often happens within the poker community, the news first broke on a popular poker forum, 2+2 where a leaked email was posted. The email that was initially addressed to the Dublin employee’s of Full Tilt Poker, confirms the surrender of Ray Bitar to US authorities, as well as the possibility of an impending sale of Full Tilt Poker assets to what used to be the companies #1 competitor, PokerStars.
To all Dublin Staff,
By now you probably have heard that I have returned to the US to deal with civil and criminal case that are pending against me in New York. We have all worked hard over the last 15 months to preserve Full Tilt’s assets and potential in order to provide for the repayment of all players, and that continues to be our top priority. It is as important as ever that we all do everything possible to make that happen and, hopefully our deal with Poker Stars will very soon make our goal a reality. My return to the US is part of this process.
I am particularly grateful to all of you here in Dublin for your hard work, patience and understanding during this difficult time. I believe that your hard work and dedication should not go unrecognized, and we have made arrangements for Poker Stars to guarantee all July salaries. You should therefore have no concern about coming to work during this period. After that, we expect that your employment contracts will be assumed by the buyer of the company’s assets.
For those that need to reach me, I expect to continue to be available by email and phone starting late Monday, New York time.
In the meantime, please refer any operational questions to ****, and any HR questions to ****.Thank you all again.
Kind regards,
Raymond J Bitar
Another of Black Friday’s indicted 11, Utah banker John Campos was sentenced two three months in prison last week due to his role in laundering millions of dollars, more than $200 million in fact. There are those that would say that the punishment fits the lack of an actual crime, and then there are those that will argue that the United States went pretty light on Campos, how often does laundering millions get a fellow 3 months?
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