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"Silence is golden" appears to be the official line....
Over the past few weeks industry personnel and players alike have been trying to work out what really happened in a United States Department of Justice and apparently RCMP-sanctioned "visit" to a Canadian marketing company in a Vancouver, British Columbia suburb in November.
Much of the interest has centred on the apparently unlimited reach of the DoJ's enforcement arm across the international US-Canadian border, and whether it was an online gambling-related incident.
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It has been alleged, at this stage on hearsay and reports from persons at two removes from the still un-named company involved, that the DoJ accompanied by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials, pitched up at the marketing company, which apparently carried out straightforward promotional work for or was connected with the Absolute Poker online poker provider.
Staff at the company were allegedly questioned, although the content of the questions is not known. Despite this, speculation is running rife that the "raid" was designed more to intimidate than prosecute, because as far as is known no arrests were made and no subsequent criminal action undertaken.
If the goal was to intimidate, it certainly worked according to some reports, which now indicate that the company is closed to all intents and purposes with employees carrying out their duties from their homes. Sources within the company have been quoted as saying that "vital" employees have been given 3 months to accept transfers to Costa Rica, implying that the marketing company is re-locating following the not-so-friendly official visit.
More recently, other company insiders are alleged to have claimed that the long arm of the U.S. law reached into Canada as a result of a routine domain check that unearthed the B.C. location of the marketing company. This domain has now been edited to reflect a Belize address, lending credence to the report.
In an attempt to get some first hand confirmation on the largely hearsay-based story, InfoPowa on several occasions contacted Absolute Poker, a webmaster who ran with the story on a YouTube video insert and a former Absolute employee called Gian Perroni who was the original source of the story.
Despite repeated attempts the search for more information was ignored and the visited company remained unidentified, making it difficult to engage directly with the staff who had been questioned by the DoJ officials.
The wall of silence grew higher when an official request for a media comment was lodged with the RCMP officer who was apparently involved in the case, S/Sgt. Fred Pinnock who is the NCO in charge of the Integrated Illegal Gaming Enforcement Team (IIGET) "E" Division in Burnaby, B.C.
We asked for the name of the company approached, who was questioned and in what connection and whether the presence of United States officials "visiting" Canadian citizens on Canadian soil was sanctioned or supported by court order, warrant or treaty. We also drew attention to the widespread speculation that the visit may have had an intimidatory objective.
S/Sgt. Pinnock's reply gave an indication of the nature of the DoJ visit, but no detail. In a courteous but firm "no comment" the officer said: "I apologize. I'm not at liberty to provide you information beyond the fact that attendance was made at the request of US officials. They were not participants in the conversation."
S/Sgt. Pinnock did, however, say that he had referred our enquiry to the U.S. Department of Justice, but nothing has been heard from that organisation and the RCMP did not give any detail on a follow-up contact in the States. We're not holding our breath pending a comment from the US officials.
All that is known at first hand and for certain therefore is that US officials were present and instigated the visit, escorted by Canadian national police from an illegal gambling team. And the nature of the visit and the questions asked (the RCMP claims the American officials were silent) will not be disclosed.
Quite apart from the mysterious silence of everyone directly involved in the incident, and the intriguing identity of the company concerned it is a strange and worrying sequence of events, especially if the speculation is true that the company shut down as a consequence of this visit.
Regrettably, the situation remains unclarified by official statements as to exactly what the objective was in November, when an apparently official enforcement "visit" by US and RCMP officers was sufficient to at least temporarily shut down a thriving business.
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