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Australian Police Raid E-Gaming Operation18 September 2002AUSTRALIA – As reported by the Queensland Courier Mail: "An online gaming and virtual stock exchange run from Queensland is alleged to have ripped off hundreds of investors around the world, prompting an international police investigation and threats of legal action. "The scheme uses a sophisticated website dubbed World Games Inc, which offers subscribers tens of thousands of Swiss francs a week for referring punters to the site and from commissions on gambling transactions. "Police in Queensland and Sweden have swooped on people associated with the scheme, and earlier versions of it, while a group of investors is in the process of launching a class action against its operators. "…Two Gold Coast businessmen were expected to appear in the Southport Magistrate's Court in November facing a total of 40 counts of fraud relating to their involvement in an earlier version of the gaming operation called VG Global, a Queensland police spokeswoman said yesterday. "And in Sweden, a 39-year-old woman was arrested over her alleged involvement in promoting the current scheme (World Games Inc), which lists a post office box at Robina on the Gold Coast as a technical contact address and is owned by a company in the British Virgin Islands. "Swedish investigators who charged the woman described the operation as a pyramid marketing operation which offered investors nothing. "…Former investors in Australia this week said more than 20 of them were preparing to launch a class action against the business and its associated companies. "…They are understood to be claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars in winnings and commissions…" |