US gamblers fined for failing to declare casino winnings
A pair of gamblers in the United States who failed to declare their casino winnings from the Bahamas have been fined by border officials.
Tribune reports the two tourists failed to declare nearly $80,000 worth of winnings and were each fined $1500.
The pair were arrested on January 16 after they made a false declaration to a US officer and failed to declare they were trying to carry more than $10,000 into American territory.
The Florida and Arizona natives admitted the offences during a hearing before Magistrate Samuel McKinney.
The court was told that the accused entered Lynden Pindling International Ariport’s pre-clearance area at 12.23pm on the day of their arrests.
When a US border patrol officer asked them how much money they had in their custody, they both said they had under $10,000.
The prosecution said at the time that the pair claimed to be carrying less than $5000 each.
However, after the US officials noticed the men acting suspiciously, they conducted a secondary check when they discovered the sum of $79,343.
The court was told one man carried $30,000 while the other carried the remainder.
Both men were arrested and taken to the Financial Crimes Investigation Unit, where they told officers they had won the money from gambling at a casino at Baha Mar, the Bahamas.
Dutch regulator fines game of chance websites
Fines worth 600,000 euro have been handed out by the Dutch gaming authority for a site that offered illegal online games of chance.
Gambling Insider reported that Curacao’s Virtual Coin Gaming offered games on its websites futgalaxy.nl and nl.futgamer.com and received a 500,000 euro fine.
An unnamed individual has also been fined 100,000 euro.
The Dutch authority, the KSA, has revealed the fines had been increased due to young adults taking part in the games.
The body also noted it prioritises illegal games that specifically target Dutch customers, as was the case with these two websites, which both used Dutch language.
The games violated the Games of Chance Act, which stipulates that a game of chance may be offered only if a licence has been granted.
Online games of chance are prohibited in the country, with the current law stating it is not possible to apply for a licence for online games of chance.
The law is expected to change to align with the Remote Gambling Act, which will come into effect later this year.
Licences for online games of chance will be made available, but operators must meet strict conditions regarding player protection to be granted a licence.
Police find cash at South Korean casino
Unidentified cash worth US$7.4 million was found by police at a South Korean casino.
Gambling Insider reported that police found the cash on Jeju Island, a casino in the country and the cash may be connected to theft by an employee of the company.
The Jeju Provincial Police Agency confirmed that investigators are in the process of analysing if the banknotes discovered at a safe at the casino, are part of funds that went missing from the Landing Casino at Jeju Shinhwa World last week.
Investigators also confirmed that a separate sum of money worth several billion South Korean won was found at the residence of a female Malaysian executive, who is reportedly a key suspect in the case.
Having secured camera footage from the casino, police are now searching for the employee who was in charge of handling funds at the casino.
But video recordings at the time of the alleged theft have been erased.
“We are tracking the whereabouts of the cash and the person in question by checking CCTV footage,” police said.
Landing International Development, the Hong Kong-based operator of the casino, disclosed the cash disappearance last week, having filed a police report through its local affiliate.
