Calvin Ayre, Canadian citizen and owner of Bodog, has been indicted by the United States, along with three other Canadians. Is this an example of a big time money launderer? Or is it just another example of U.S. extra-territorial judicial overreach? Meanwhile, check out Ayre’s website, bodog.com.
See:
Globe and Mail: Billionaire Canadian accused of running illegal gambling site
Nota Bene to Steven: Calvin Ayre is not the new poster child of the Isaac Brock Society. Neither is Paris Hilton.
@Petros
I was going to post something about this case earlier but I’ll make a few observations. First unlike Kim Dotcom there does not appear to be any cooperation from Canadian law enforcement in this case. Ayre unlike DotCom was born in and always was a Canadian citizen. Ayre is also politically connected so to speak in Canada i.e. big political donor.
Internet Gambling is technically illegal in Canada but for a lot of complex reasons is something Canadian law enforcement(RCMP/OPP/Suriete Quebec) don’t want to get to involved with. One reason is the biggest player in Canadian internet gambling isn’t Calvin Ayre but the Kahnawake First Nations Tribe(who strongly believe themselves to be sovereign from Canada). The name Kahnawake isn’t exactly a warm and cuddly word to the RCMP and Suriete Quebec. This is same tribe behind the famous Oka Crisis back in the summer of 1990 where a Suriete Quebec officer was killed and two month standoff ensued that was only settled by the involvement of 2500 Canadian Army troops.
I posted some links to news clips of the crisis below back from 1990. If you search for Oka crisis on Google Images give you quickly get some quite vivid images of what happened and why this isn’t exactly a group of people the RCMP wants to mess around with. Having said the people the US should really be indicting for illegal gambling are the top leadership of the Kahnawake Tribe on the otherhand as the videos below show that might not be such a good idea.
There is an article at the Register(A European IT newsletter) discussing some of the legal implications of this Bodog case which are significant in terms of legal jurisdiction of Domain Names. Bodog was registered in Canada but the US was able to go direclty to Verisign which operates the master .COM registry to get the domain pulled. Article below.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/01/bodog_shut_via_verisign/
Interesting Quote:
By going to the root operator of .com and having the records pulled – bypassing the registrar entirely – the DHS has sent the world exactly one message: anything hosted in the US, registered in the US, or using a domain whose root is controlled by a US corporation is subject to American law.
Expect to see a big push from non-American internet service providers of all stripes capitalizing on this event to make “not hosted in America” a major selling point. Indeed, it already is. If your website relies on a .com, .net or other American-controlled domain, and you are not an American company, it may be time to revisit that strategy. .com has just depreciated in value
@Tim
The Mohawk tribe near Oka is Kanestaka,
Kahnawake is south of Montréal. Neither group to my knowledge is involved in internet gambling
@Tim
That’s the problem though — there are a surprising number of top-level domains (TLDs) whose registries are controlled by companies based in the US or otherwise having US exposure. The three obvious problematic ones are Verisign, Neustar, and Afilias, which covers pretty much all the generic TLDs (.com, .info, etc.) and a long list of country-code TLDs (plenty of Caribbean countries, Mongolia, and more). Not to mention, any non-US registry with US assets might be coerced into acting if those assets got seized …
If you wanted to be 100% safe on this, you’d have to do due diligence on both your registrar (the guy selling you the domain name) and the TLD registry (the guy who keeps the domain database) to make sure they are not subject to US court jurisdiction and are not in a country that will roll over and bark at the request of US cops — since either the registrar or the registry can be compelled by their local government to change your DNS records to give effect to the “domain seizure”.
http://renounceuscitizenship.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/u-s-attempts-to-assert-control-over-internet-domain-names/
Geist: U.S. could claim millions of Canadian domain names in piracy battle
“To put this in context, every Canadian Internet provider relies on ARIN for its block of IP addresses. In fact, ARIN even allocates the block of IP addresses used by federal and provincial governments. The U.S. bill would treat them all as domestic for U.S. law purposes.”
I saw this about Calvin Ayre yesterday. Crazy that they can seize the domain before he even goes to trial. I think that is highly unfair (guilty until proven innocent). I mentioned this in the comments more than once, but THERE NEEDS TO BE A PARALLEL INTERNET TO SEGREGATE THE US 1984 INTERNET, LEAVING THE REST OF THE WORLD ALONE.
On a somewhat similar thread, there have been executives of two FOREX brokers that have settled with the US CFTC: FXopen and Interforex. My thinking is that they settled so they wouldn’t have problems like this. I personally am not a fan of “games of chance”, but if people want to play, then let them play. Why should a government tell them that they can’t. The US has its share of casinos as well, and not just in Las Vegas.
Oh, now there is a 3rd regulated broker that has settled with the CFTC: http://forexmagnates.com/enfinium-settles-with-the-cftc-for-accepting-us-forex-traders/
Let me make a point here:
The US passed “regulations” in the US that increased the margin (money required) aka “RISK” involved in negotiating foreign exchange contracts (FOREX). These brokers outside of the US ARE NOT soliciting US business. Americans are desperately going to them because they are unhappy with the over-regulation going on in America. And what happens? The US CFTC turns around and sues these companies for accepting US clients, even if they are legally registered in any other jurisdiction, or they may be unaware of the law.
Regulation is supposed to keep bad companies from doing business, but this US regulation does not do this. All it does is limit competition and create a captive US market for existing brokers. I’m sorry, but I cannot “pretend” that this regulation is good. Better regulation can be found in places like Malta, Cyprus, or Switzerland where they at least demand segregation of customer funds.
The MF Global blow-up and loss of a half billion dollars of customer funds shows that the US regulation doesn’t work.
For those wanting to see how the United States can seize a domain name, check out Ayre’s website, bodog.com (I’ve added this link to the post).
@rivka
The Kahnawake are “huge” players in internet gambling. Remember all these sites down in the Carribean have a huge problem in terms of hosting. They definately can’t host in the US and the power supply and telecommunication links in the Carribean are very unreliable. So gues where they do their hosting. On the “sovereign” nation of the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory right outside of Montreal with fast internet access from Bell and reliable power supply from Hydro Quebec. Here is a link below:
http://www.gamingcommission.ca/
I have nothing against First Nations. I actually think it is pretty cool what they do in terms of their various business “activities.” There land was “stolen” from them. Better their various side “activities” than another Oka. From my limited knowledge of First Nations my understanding is the Kahnawake are perhaps the most militant and powerful band in the entire country. They are heavy into internet gambling, “smoke shack” cigarettes, and other various businesses. While Oka did not involve the Kahnawake directly many of their members were “bussed” in during the confrontation. They have also been known to support other First Nations during more ambitious activities such as roadblocking the 401 in Eastern Ontario. Plus they have the ability on their own territory to block the Mercier Bridge which they did during most of the Oka crisis. Supposedly Amb Jacobson visited the top band leadership a few weeks back so I wonder if the US has decided the Kahnawake are a group the better not mess around with either.
Here is an article from several years ago talking about the dymanics between Ottawa, Washington, and the Kahnawake. It makes several references to the fact the US Justice Department was putting pressure on Ottawa to shut down the Kahnawake but that Ottawa was deathly afraid of another Oka.
http://www.gambling911.com/Canada-Kahnawake-030608.html
Tim, when I watched the videos you posted this morning. I was a little surprised at the Canadian reaction. I know you guys are more level-headed than Americans, but common… why send in AN ARMY to allow the expansion of a golf course!!!!?
Not part of Canada. Hah! They were throwing out palavrões (swear words) with ZERO accent in English. Their English is perfect.
@geeez
In the aftermath of this whole mess the golf course in fact was never expanded. The Quebec government basically panicked after an officer of provincial police force, the SQ was killed and thus essentially made a declaration that Canada was being “invaded” forcing the federal government to send in the army. The prime minister of the day Brian Mulroney was not exactly thrilled to get involved in the whole mess. I posted a link below to the “friendly” welcome sign the Kahnawake have at the entrance of their reserve.
http://www.wednesday-night.com/RobertGalbraith-6nation.asp
SQ is the Quebec Provincial Police and RCMP are Canada’s national police force. The smaller sign in the background written in French says “tax free” cigarettes. These guys are much bigger into internet gambling than I thought this morning 60 of the top 100 are hosted on the reserve’s data center.
@geeez
There are different accounts of how much weaponery they had but there accounts of thousands of firearms including 80 AK-47 fully automatic machine guns, several hundred semi automatic rifles, even more longgun hunting rifles, and huge stocks of ammo. In addition they showed off for the media very good decoys of M72 Rocket launchers(just like in the Hollywood shot em ups) and supposedly a MILAN anti tank missile. Canadians are not quite as civil as everyone thinks.
Tim, I’ll talk about the Indians in just a minute, but a link about EU/US Pariot Act issues from a MSM source:
http://technorati.com/technology/cloud-computing/article/specter-haunts-american-cloud-companies-the
We have already been talking about this for a while now…
Tim, I’m not trying to speak negatively about Canadians, but their behaviour during that incident?? Why? The idea of sending in a “platoon” of Quebequois Canadian Army soliders.. for a golf course? Do you see what I’m getting at.. a GOLF COURSE?
If those people (Native Indiians) are willing to sacafice their lives for their land, let them have it! And let them host the most profitable sites in the world. That will only come back to help the host (Canada) later.
Why do you think that the US invited foreign captial for so many years? And at the end of the day, the Death Tax for non-US citizens is only $60,000 USD!! Because they are smart, *unscupulous* b*st*rds, that’s why!!!
@Geeez
The Oka crisis was almost twenty years ago and I would argue there is a much different attitude towards dealing First Nations today. The issue in the present is it is the US Justice Department who wants Canada to go in essentially guns blazing onto the reserve and shut down all these sites to which Canada in my mind has rightfully told the US that they don’t understand what people they are dealing with(Given all the history). While internet gambling is “technically” illegal in Canada the Kahnawake have been involved in hosting gaming sites for almost fifteen years now while the Canadian government has essentially looked the other way to the dismay of the US. As the link below shows the Kahnawake do actually have their own gaming commision as part of the tribal government and have a pretty high priced team lawyers who draw up governing “regulations” for all these sites. The thing is given the strict prohibition on internet gaming in the US and its uncertain legal status in Canada to the extent the Kahnawake are defacto soveriegn(in the sense the Canadian government doesn’t want to mess with them given the history) the Kahnawake have a pretty good gig running. Their reserve is 15KM from downtown Montreal, 10KM from Montreal Trudeau Airport, and 15KM from what was once the largest hydroelectric power station in the world. Plus Highway 138 and the Mercier Bridge which is major throughfare running to the south of Montreal along with the mainline of the Canadian Pacific Railroad run right through the reserve. They make tons of money just on selling tax free cigarettes to motorists passing through on 138. The datacenter where all these sites are hosted as literally right off of Route 138 and they have all sorts of fiber optic links they have from Bell Canada and other telecommunications carriers along with reliable power supply from the Hydro Quebec lines running right down 138. What is interesting in my mind is the Government could try to shutdown their internet access and fibre links but clearly after fifteen years are unwilling. At the slightest hint of conflict the Kahnawake start threatening to “roadblock” 138 and the Mercier Bridge which causes traffic nightmares. I do have to say their “warning” sign on 138 is one of the wierdest things you’ll ever see.
@Geeez
I actually am looking at specification sheet of the Kahnawake Data Centre. It absolutely state of the art if you are at all familar with IT. I’ll to try upload the spec sheet. Multiple Gigabit Ethernet multihomed to multiple Montreal POP sites of multiple Global Tier One providers.
http://www.continent8.com/data-centres/locations/data-centre-Kahnawake.php
Tim, very interesting. It appears to be a very tough situation with the Indians. But maybe they are better off that way and drain less resources from the Canadian taxpayer. It’s too bad the other Canadian people can’t benefit from the Mohawk’s “waivers”.
When I worked at a large US bank, I fielded calls from various tribes in the US south/southwest. They told me that their tribes receive payments from the US Government. From there, they divy up the money. I don’t know the specifics, but the reservation system in the US appeared to be a quasi-welfare type of system. Usually I would talk to unemployed people. So however you call it, the payments from the taxpayers, which is a drain on the system.