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"An ultra high-stakes, illegal poker ring run by Russian gangsters for Wall Street multimillionaires and celebrities like Alex Rodriguez folded on Tuesday, authorities said.
Federal agents arrested about 30 people and brought charges against 34 in total, including underground poker den operators previously linked to the Yankees slugger and other A-listers. The list of defendants includes Molly Bloom, a hottie hostess known for organizing card parties with celebs like A-Rod, Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon
It also includes Edwin Ting, 41, who ran a Manhattan poker club where A-Rod was spotted in 2005 scratching the gambling itch that eventually triggered a Major League Baseball probe. And the 84-page indictment names Hillel (Helly) Nahmad, 34, an uberwealthy upper East Side art gallery owner with a taste for supermodels.
In addition to card games, the sprawling operation flushed out Tuesday operated illegal gambling websites, ran a global sports book and laundered more than $100 million, authorities said.
Bloom, 34, the Colorado-raised sister of Olympic skier Jeremy Bloom, became queen of the Hollywood poker scene in recent years, hosting discreet games at the lavish homes of top actors and athletes and at luxury hotels.
But the mistress of the full house could be headed to the big house. She faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of operating an illegal gambling business.
“She has no intention of minimizing the case against her, but hopefully, prosecutors understand that even some of our Supreme Court justices enjoy a weekly poker game,” Cole said.
A source said Tuesday that A-Rod did attend poker parties hosted by Bloom but stopped after a 2011 MLB investigation.
The indictment fingers two related crime enterprises — the “Taiwanchik-Trincher Organization” and the “Nahmad-Trincher Organization” — headed by a motley cast of characters based in New York, L.A., Kiev and Moscow.
Lead defendants include professional poker player Vadim Trincher, 52, and Russian crime boss Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, 64, who was once labeled one of the world’s 10 most wanted fugitives.
They face up to 90 years if convicted on all counts, but Tokhtakhounov remains on the lam in Russia.
Trincher won hundreds of thousands of dollars at an illegal poker game at The Plaza hotel and ran “the world’s largest sports book” out of his apartment,” (???) prosecutors said in court on Tuesday.
Tokhtakhounov was already under indictment in New York on charges he bribed officials at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games to fix figure-skating events.
The invitation-only games that Bloom hosted featured professional dealers with hundreds of thousands of dollars being bet, reports said.
The criminal organizations laundered tens of millions through shell companies in Cyprus, U.S. bank accounts and a Bronx plumbing firm, and used threats of violence to resolve disputes with gambling clients, authorities said.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/cri...reet-fat-cats-article-1.1318139#ixzz2QjqQcyJX
She's being called the "Poker Princess." Molly Bloom, who orchestrated secret and exclusive high-stakes poker games in Hollywood, just got a book deal. Bloom — as well as Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck — was named in a series of lawsuits seeking to reclaim millions won during unlicensed poker matches.
Last year, Radar reported that Bloom organized the poker circle — everything from felt-top tables to professional dealers to food, alcohol and the guest list.
: In a deposition about her operation, which took in tens of millions of dollars beginning in 2006 through 2009, Bloom admitted she regularly hired women to come in and massage some of the players, who would become tense and tired from the marathon games that occurred twice a week. She did not name the players who received massages nor are we suggesting the massages were improper.
The memoir should hit in summer 2014, and, according to the AP, The publisher says the book will take readers inside the poker matches that Bloom ran in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Las Vegas "until it all came crashing down around her."
http://jezebel.com/5928712/hollywoods-underground-poker-princess-is-working-on-a-memoir
