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From Casino City
Pokerbandits.ca shut down a hoax
February 12, 2007
by Aaron Todd
It appears that the Internet rumors that pokerbandits.ca was shut down by the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and the Canadian government were just that: Internet rumors.
Officials from all three authorities had not heard of the Web site and denied any part in the removal of content from the site.
Pokerbandits.ca, which until recently offered advice on how Americans could get around Internet gambling restrictions, announced this morning that it had been shut down.
"This site has been shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice in conjunction with Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada," read bold black text over a brick red background.
"Normally we don't comment on ongoing cases," said Justice Department spokeswoman Jaclyn Lesch. "But I'm not getting any indication that we're involved in this whatsoever."
An FBI spokesman also knew nothing about the site.
"I checked the cyber division, the Department of Justice, and no one seems to know anything about it," said FBI agent Paul Bresson.
The domain was registered at Namespro.ca on Oct. 23, 2006, just weeks after the UIGEA was passed in Congress. This morning, a "WHOIS" search revealed that the registration information had been changed Sunday and the "Government of Canada" in "Gatineau, Quebec," was listed as the site's administrative mailing address.
"Jack Chow" was listed as the administrative and technical contact for the site, but the phone number led instead to Michael Gee, the contact person for the Public Works and Government Services Web site.
"This information is totally false," Gee said of the WHOIS information. "This person must have seen that I have a Chinese name and made up a different (Chinese name)."
Gee also pointed out that the e-mail address points to a domain that does not exist, and that the phone number listed includes an extension, despite the fact that the department's phone numbers have no extensions and can be directly dialed.
"If someone wants to falsify something, there's not much we can do about that," said David Hicks, a spokesman for the Canadian Internet Registration Authority. "In regards to CIRA, when people provide false information, we can remove the domain, but we really don't do that very often."
Hicks added that CIRA also removes sites with illegal information on occasion, but that wasn't the case with pokerbandits.ca.
Shortly after Casino City contacted CIRA, visitors to pokerbandits.ca were greeted by a "Forbidden" error message, announcing the user did not have access to the server. A second WHOIS search revealed that the contact information was changed, listing Arif Khan as the Administrative and Technical contact, and all references to the Canadian government had been removed.
Pokerbandits.ca had offered information on one of its message boards how American citizens could get around the UIGEA.
The step-by-step guide suggested Americans could use Canadian mailing addresses and IP masking technology to sign up for Internet gambling accounts.
Casino City was unable to contact Khan, and e-mails and phone calls to "Raven Corp," which published a press release announcing pokerbandits.ca's guide to getting around the UIGEA in January, were unanswered.
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