Interactive
Argentina – Operator of unauthorised online site jailed in Argentina
By Phil - 16 July 2018
Buenos Aires prosecutor Martín Lapadú has won a case which imposes a three-year prison sentence on the person responsible for the organisation and running of the online betting websites Miljugadas.com, Miljugadas2.com and Miljugadas55.com.
The prosecutor’s office won the case in a hearing against the accused Quinton Gregori Marshall and the sentence was handed down by Judge Rodolfo Ariza Clérici, Head of the Criminal, Contravention and Misdemeanour Court. In what could be a landmark case the three year suspended sentence was handed down for the English citizen who has resided for a number of years in the city of Posadas, in the province of Misiones for forming Eligra Solutions SRL and Miljugadas SRL.
At the same time the web pages with the denomination Miljugadas will be “disabled in the territory of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, as they do not have the corresponding permission from the Lottery of the City of Buenos Aires (LOTBA),” according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in a press release.
Lapadú welcomed the news adding that the government was making significant headway in its crackdown on unauthorised online betting sites. “It is very positive to have achieved this unprecedented sentence in our country. It is a great incentive to deepen the investigation of more than 180 cases of illegal websites, for which we have already obtained more than 130 court orders to block nationally in addition to the taking down of Internet domains such as Spingol.com and Misionbet.com. We have also achieved the blocking of credit cards, virtual wallets and bank accounts, with more than 450 million pesos embargoed. That money, at the request of the City Prosecutor’s Office, will be integrated into a reserve fund in order to serve people with a domicile in the capital, who have been damaged by the illicit action of the Miljugadas website,” Lapadú said.
The first raids on the company were carried out in July of 2017, which achieved the initial closure of the site, and in the same year there were further raids on the properties of the online gambling company Miljugadas in the cities of Oberá and Posadas, both located in the province of Misiones. All these proceedings were carried out by the Judicial Investigation Body of the Buenos Aires Prosecutor’s Office (CIJ) and documents were seized which backed up the accusations made by Prosecutor Lapadú.
Lapadú emphasised that it had been a joint operation with a number of government agencies taking part. “It is also fundamental in the investigation of illegal gaming the joint work with the Lottery of the City of Buenos Aires, which makes the pertinent complaints and provides technical support in order to deepen and perfect the investigations and also the close coordination with the authorities of the National Communications Agency (ENACOM), with highly positive results,” he said.
Online gaming in Argentina is limited under current rules, and only a very small number of local interactive betting sites are permitted to offer their services and then only in the province where they operate. Generally speaking, these sites have faced a number of legal problems and in most cases were closed soon afterwards. Online gaming is not permitted in the capital of Argentina or in the province of Buenos Aires. When operators have been found to offer their services outside of the province and capital the government has moved to block them from doing so in the courts. The autonomous city of Buenos Aires has also been strict when it comes to offshore operators found to be operating locally.
