(CLEVELAND)— Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine joined Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason today to announce indictments involving alleged illegal activity at internet cafés in the Cleveland area.
“We are working hard with partners like Prosecutor Mason to crack down on illegal internet cafes in Ohio,” said Attorney General DeWine. “These businesses, hundreds across Ohio, are totally unregulated and can be a real consumer rip-off.”
Ten individuals and seven companies were indicted on one count of engaging in a criminal enterprise, a first degree felony. Several of the defendants were also charged with conspiracy, gambling, and money laundering.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) helped assist in the investigation, led by Prosecutor Mason’s office, and also included the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s Ohio Investigative Unit, the Parma Heights Police Department, U.S. Postal Inspectors, and the U.S. Secret Service.
“The end result is exactly what the members of the criminal enterprise intended – a complicated and elaborate, layered web of related companies dispersing and distributing money to each other with hopes of never being caught,” Prosecutor Mason said. “The days of gambling with the law have come to a screeching halt.”
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