FBI moves against PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker

The FBI has shut down three of the most popular online poker services, and brought indictments against 11 senior executives for bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling offences.

Almost all forms of internet gambling using real money are illegal in the US since the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in 2006. None of the three companies is based in the US, but they do accept US players.

"As charged, these defendants concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some US banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal gambling profits," said Manhattan US attorney Preet Bharara.

"Moreover, as we allege, in their zeal to circumvent the gambling laws, the defendants also engaged in massive money laundering and bank fraud. Foreign firms that choose to operate in the US are not free to flout the laws they don't like simply because they can't bear to be parted from their profits."

According to the FBI the companies found most banks unwilling to handle the cash of US customers because of the illegality. The accused set up shell companies to obscure the origin of the funds being transferred, but some of these accounts were tracked down and frozen.

The companies then decided on a more direct approach. According to the FBI they paid $10m for a 30 per cent stake in a small private bank in Utah named SunFirst. The vice president of the bank agreed to process the funds from gambling sites directly, in exchange for a $20,000 personal bonus for his trouble.

"These defendants, knowing full well that their business with US customers and US banks was illegal, tried to stack the deck. They lied to banks about the true nature of their business," said FBI assistant director Janice Fedarcyk.

"Then, some of the defendants found banks willing to flout the law for a fee. The defendants bet the house that they could continue their scheme, and they lost."

The FBI confirmed that it had arrested three of the men named in the charges, with the other eight being sought overseas. Five domain names used to run the sites have been taken over, and courts have issued orders to freeze 76 bank accounts in 14 countries thought to contain as much as $3bn from American poker customers.