Costa Rica Agents Raid Absolute Poker Offices and Residents

April 15th 2011, known as “Black Friday” in online poker circles, is when Federal indictments were handed down and the U.S. government shut down Absolute Poker, UB Poker, PokerStars and Full Tilt poker. Since then PokerStars and Full Tilt reached agreement with the U.S. to regain usage of their websites for the sole purpose of letting U.S. online poker players withdraw their money.

So far PokerStars has started the process while Full Tilt is still working on details to get money back. Absolute Poker and UB (formerly Ultimate Bet) however has never signed such an agreement and rumors abound on if and when U.S. players will see their money again. Stories abound concerning these sites from Antigua wanting them to fight the U.S. indictment to possible bankruptcy.

11 people were indicted and to date 4 of them are in custody. Over the weekend, the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ), the Costa Rican version of the FBI raided several offices and residents Friday looking for Absolute Poker executive Scott Tom, Olman Rimola, the owner of Innovative Data Solutions (IDS) where Absolute Poker was housed. Neither men were home during the raid and are still at large.

You can watch a video of the raid here.

According to a post on the popular poker forum 2+2, a poster who states he is posting this information on behalf of an Absolute Poker employee. A group of investors made an offer to but Absolute Poker and UB non-US business and was turned down. According to the post, $16 milion dollars not confiscated will now be used to set up a new business, pay all non-US players and leave the U.S. players high and dry.

According to the post, which you can read here;

“The Management has no intention to pay the US players. They are going to steal their money, once again. This time they will use it to set up a new business. They will claim US balances are held by FBI unless FORCED to act responsibly.”