And another 44Wager defendant pleads guilty

A major enforcement action earlier this year which shut down online sports betting site 44Wager.com and resulted in the arrest of over 20 US individuals on various charges associated with illegal online gambling claimed another victim this week when Florida resident Craig Caffro (48) appeared in a Connecticut court to plead guilty.

Caffro entered a guilty plea on single counts of money laundering and operating an illegal gambling business based in Stanford, Connecticut, joining most of the other defendants in the case who have admitted wrongdoing.

The US Attorney’s Office Thursday announced the guilty plea, claiming that the gambling ring operated throughout Southern Connecticut and parts of metropolitan New York.

Deirdre M. Daly, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, said that Caffro also agreed to forfeit $50,000 in connection with the crimes.

Caffro was part of a 20-member group busted by the cooperative efforts of the FBI Fairfield County Organized Crime Task Force, the IRS–Criminal Investigations unit and the Stamford Police Department.

An investigation led authorities to an operation in which gamblers would place bets with the operation through offshore Internet sports-gambling websites, particularly through 44wager.com, based in Costa Rica, Daly said.

Caffro was charged with serving as the operation’s bookmaking point person for 44wager and received regular payments from the head of the operation, Dean DePreta, and co-defendant Richard Uva, according to Daly, who noted one of these payments was laundered through the bank account of an elderly mother of one of Caffro’s associates living in New Jersey.

It was determined by FBI analysis that the Stamford-based sports-betting website had generated total gross revenues of nearly $1.7 million between October 2010 and June 2011. 19 defendants have agreed to forfeit approximately $1.5 million in illegal proceeds so far, she said.

Caffro is scheduled to be sentenced on February 26, 2014.