An Antigua man has been arrested for more than a decade after being accused of participating in an illegal gambling business that used a website in Antigua but operated in the United States.
Richard Sullivan, 73, of Saint John, Antigua, was charged by a federal grand jury in Boston in August 2010 with racketeering, operating an illegal gambling business, transmitting betting information, money laundering, and interstate travel in aid of racketeering.
Sullivan was arrested on August 20, 2023, at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport while going through customs on his return to the United States from Antigua. Sullivan was arraigned in the Eastern District of New York on August 21, 2023, and will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.
This trial was one of the first times that individuals were charged with violating the Illegal Online Gambling Law Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and the first in Massachusetts.
Sullivan and his co-defendants face more than 75 counts of participating in US banking transactions involving US-based gamblers to pay Sports Offshore gambling debts.
According to the indictment, Sullivan and his three co-conspirators — Todd Lyons, Robert Eremian, and Daniel Eremian — operated Sports Offshore, an online gambling site licensed in Antigua that was already operating in the United States, operating an illegal gambling business that stretched from Massachusetts to Florida.
The network allegedly employed approximately 50 gambling agents in the United States, who lured hundreds of clients, collected gambling debts, and sent illegal gambling proceeds to Antigua.
Sullivan allegedly ran Sports Offshore’s day-to-day activities at its gambling office in St. John’s, Antigua. In this capacity, Sullivan allegedly supervised approximately 30 to 50 employees who were accepting bets from customers in the US that were placed over the phone and the Internet.
Sullivan allegedly directed collection activities related to US-based customers and agents who owed Sports Offshore money. Sullivan also allegedly acted as an agent for Sports Offshore, being responsible for a group of Massachusetts clients who bet with Sports Offshore and taking kickbacks on gambling losses incurred by those clients.
It is also alleged that Sullivan used individuals residing in Massachusetts to collect money from his clients in Massachusetts which he shipped directly to Antigua via mail.
In total, Sullivan and his co-conspirators allegedly raised more than $22 million for Sports Offshore through the illegal gambling operation and laundered more than $10 million in checks and wire transfers.
In December 2011, Lyons and Daniel Eremian were convicted after a five-week jury of their roles in the plot. Lyons was sentenced to four years in prison, one year of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit $24.6 million. Daniel Eremian was sentenced to three years in prison, one year of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit $7.7 million.
