French arrest Austrians over gambling

15.09.2006

French arrest Austrians over gambling

Police on Friday jailed the co-chief executives of Austrian online company BWIN for allegedly violating French gaming laws, police and judicial officials said.

Manfred Bodner and Norbert Teufelberger were arrested at the training center of AS Monaco, a first division soccer club where they were to hold a news conference, a police official said. BWIN has links to several first division clubs, said the official, who was not authorized to use his name.

The center is located in France's Alpes-Maritime region, near Nice.

The executives risk being placed under investigation -- a step short of being charged -- for allegedly violating French laws which prevent online gaming and advertisements from companies other than the two which hold a monopoly here, the Francaise des Jeux, which conducts the lottery, and the PMU which conducts bets for horse races.
BWIN spokeswoman Karin Klein called the detention "scandalous."

Speaking to Dow Jones Newswires, she said the company did not yet know exactly why the two executives had been detained.

The men were detained on orders of Judge Jean-Marx Cathelin, who has been investigating alleged illegal gambling, lotteries, advertising illegal lottery advertising and illicit horse betting since November 2005. The French lottery and PMU had filed a complaint against BWIN in April 2005 in a court in Nanterre, a western Paris suburb.

In a similar case, the chairman of British online gaming company Sportingbet PLC was detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York last week on a warrant issued as part of an illegal Internet gambling probe by the Louisiana State Police. He has been released on bail.

The head of another British gambling company, BetOnSports PLC, was arrested two months ago in the United States and charged by federal prosecutors with conspiracy, fraud and racketeering.

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