CRIME

Online bookie ring has link to MiamiA laptop computer was the key for authorities to take down a major Internet gambling operation and bring charges from New York to Florida to Nevada.

From Miami Herald Staff and Wire Reports

AP PHOTO/NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT

'RIVALS CASINOS:' Police say Miami's James Giordano was part of an illegal, billion-dollar gambling ring.It was the key to a billion-dollar-a-year illegal gambling kingdom: a laptop computer that authorities say was owned by a professional poker player from Miami named James Giordano.

Giordano, who rarely let the computer out of his sight, left it behind earlier this year in New York while attending a wedding, police said Wednesday. But in the three hours he and his wife were away from their Long Island hotel room, investigators armed with a search warrant and computer expertise sneaked in, found the laptop on a desk and made a digital copy of the hard drive.

The covert operation on June 15 helped unlock a sophisticated Internet-based gambling scheme that has taken in $3.3 billion in cash wagers from 40,000 bettors nationwide since 2004, authorities said. They announced charges against Giordano, 26 other defendants and three companies, including one in Hollywood and another in Davie.

''This is the largest illegal gambling operation we have ever encountered,'' said New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. ``It rivals casinos for the amount of betting.''

At first, FBI agents and Miami-Dade County police tried to trick Giordano, 52, into letting them onto his property. They phoned him from a call box next to the entrance gate of his walled Pinecrest estate, saying they needed to get in to catch a burglar. He said no.

Armed with arrest and search warrants, they then climbed over Giordano's four-foot wall and knocked on his front door. They arrested him about 6 a.m. Tuesday, and he was placed in police custody.

FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said FBI agents also searched the South Florida homes of some other suspects and the offices of companies involved.

Arrested at his Long Island home in Seaford, N.Y., was Frank Falzarano, identified by prosecutors as a scout for the Washington Nationals baseball club. Falzarano, 52, allegedly was a top earner in a network of 2,000 bookies.

Prosecutors claim the ring ran gambling wire rooms in Miami and on the Caribbean island of St. Martin, where operators took bets and kept records. Bookies assigned clients a secret code to track their wagers and monitor point spreads and results through a restricted website, Playwithal.com. The bets were on all kinds of sports, including football, baseball, basketball, hockey, auto racing and golf.

SHELL CORPORATIONS

The defendants laundered and stashed away ''untold millions of dollars'' using shell corporations and bank accounts in Central America, the Caribbean, Switzerland, Hong Kong and elsewhere, said Queens, N.Y., District Attorney Richard Brown. The prosecutor called the $500 million asset forfeiture case ``among the largest such cases ever filed.''

The 27 people in New York, New Jersey, Florida and Nevada were charged with money laundering and promoting gambling, among other counts.

Giordano waived extradition in Florida and is expected to be arraigned next week. Prosecutors did not have the name of his attorney.

Falzarano, who was ordered held on $500,000 bail after pleading not guilty, ''looks forward to defending himself in court,'' said defense attorney Peter Tomao.

Charges also were brought against three companies that allegedly helped Giordano develop and secure the website: Primary Development of Farmingdale, N.Y., Prolexic Technologies of Hollywood, and Digital Solutions of Davie.

No officials at the companies would comment.

At Prolexic -- in the downtown Hollywood arts district on the fourth floor of the Harrison Executive Centre at 1930 Harrison St. -- at least three law enforcement officers were loading computer equipment from the company onto a dolly. When a reporter walked in, the officers shut and locked the door.

The companies face a fine of $10,000, or twice the amount of their illegal gains, prosecutors said.

The individual defendants face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

VALUABLE POSSESSIONS

Search warrants resulted in the seizure of gambling records, computers and hundreds of millions of dollars in property, some of it stashed in a secret room concealed by a bookshelf in the Manhattan home of one of the suspects.

The property includes four Manhattan condominiums, millions in cash, tens of thousands of dollars' worth of casino chips from the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, jewelry, gold coins and a football signed by the 1969 New York Jets following their Super Bowl victory. Also seized was original artwork by Peter Max and Salvador Dalí.

Police launched an investigation last year after receiving a tip from a suspect in a separate organized crime probe.

Over the next several months, detectives broke the code for the website and began electronic surveillance of the suspects.

Giordano won a Texas Hold 'em poker tournament worth nearly $100,000 at the Bellagio earlier this year.

Associated Press writers Tom Hays and Ula Ilnytzky, Miami Herald staff writers Jennifer Mooney Piedra, Jay Weaver and Bridget Carey and Bloomberg News Service contributed to this report.