Federal investigators declare high-stakes poker professional Gal Yifrach‘s alleged unlawful playing operation continued for greater than a 12 months after being indicted in March 2022.
A grand jury filed a superseding indictment in opposition to the 2018 World Sequence of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner on Jan. 16, 2025 in america District Court docket Japanese District of California. The court docket doc reviewed by PokerNews would not have many noticeable modifications from the preliminary indictment, apart from two key variations.
Poker Participant Faces Stiff Penalties
Yifrach, a longtime Southern California poker participant, is charged with two felonies — conducting an unlawful playing enterprise and conspiracy to commit cash laundering. He faces as much as a mixed 25 years in jail, $750,000 in fines, and three years of supervised launch, if convicted.
The high-stakes gambler allegedly performed an unlawful playing enterprise involving “supplying, working, and sustaining video slot machines and units.”
The cash laundering accusation a part of the indictment includes allegedly taking the money from the unlawful on line casino and exchanging it for clear cash. As acknowledged within the indictment, he then used these funds to put money into actual property and make different purchases.
Authorities declare Yifrach laundered cash in a couple of other ways. One was to trade the alleged unlawful playing income for on line casino chips at a “on line casino in Bell Gardens, California,” referred to within the doc as “On line casino 1.” He would then, federal investigators say, take these on line casino chips to the on line casino and trade them for checks, which he would deposit into his checking account.
What is the Distinction?
The unique indictment acknowledged that Yifrach and his co-defendants, “starting no later than or about January 2018, and repeatedly thereafter by way of in or about January 2022, within the State and Japanese District of California, did conduct, handle, supervise, and direct all or a part of an unlawful playing enterprise, to wit, a playing enterprise supplying, working, and sustaining video slot machines and units and involving receiving, holding, and forwarding cash to be staked, pledged, wager, and wagered upon the results of a contest and contingent occasion.”
There’s one main distinction within the just lately filed superseding indictment from the textual content above, and that’s the alleged felony exercise ran “repeatedly thereafter by way of in or about July 2023.” That is key as a result of the unique indictment was filed in March 2022, that means investigators now imagine the alleged unlawful playing operation continued for 16 months after prices have been filed.
A superseding indictment is a doc that replaces and amends the unique indictment. This could occur in a federal case the place further prices are filed or further proof has been found.
The three-year case in opposition to Yifrach and his co-defendants already included over 140,000 pages of proof in opposition to the accused criminals.
The second main distinction between the preliminary and superseding indictment is that a few of the defendants talked about has modified. Schneur Zalman Getzel Rosenfeld pleaded responsible final summer time. Yifrach is the one defendant out of 4 who’s going through each felony counts.
Two new co-defendants — Jesus Cisneros-Sanchez and Phuoc Tran — have a warrant out for his or her arrest and should face a decide who will decide bail. Yifrach is alleged to have exchanged $200,500 value of on line casino checks and turned that into paper checks as a part of the alleged cash laundering operation in November 2018. The indictment lists quite a few related allegations that investigators declare befell over a five-year interval.
Yifrach and co-defendant Shalom Ifrah, in response to the indictment, “used, triggered for use, and agreed to make use of a number of strategies to trade money proceeds of the unlawful playing enterprise for different gadgets of worth to hide the truth that their earnings was derived from working an unlawful playing enterprise.”
The high-stakes poker participant has been and stays out on bail.
Yifrach has $2.4 million in reside event cashes, in response to The Hendon Mob. He competed a number of instances on Stay on the Bike and Hustler On line casino Stay.
Feds Present 140k Pages of Proof In opposition to Poker Participant Charged w/ Unlawful Playing & Cash Laundering
