US authorities have unearthed a major sports gambling and extortion racket involving a family of non-resident Indians and seized assets worth $3 million.
The NRI family, whom police has characterised as an "organised crime family", allegedly ran a multi-million dollars sports gambling operation from Fairfax County and perhaps the largest in the history of that Virginia county involving hundreds of clients.
The sting dubbed 'Operation underdog' led to the arrest of Raj Bansal and his two sons Nicholas and Steve Bansal who are said to be the ringleader. A total of eight have been charged with crimes including money laundering, racketeering and in one case, extortion, police said.
According to the authorities the suspects not only organised illegal bets in football and basketball games but also distributed marijuana.
"I don't think we've dealt with an operation quite this large before," said Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr adding, "I don't recall any in the past 39 years."
Raj and Nicholas Bansal have also been charged with possession of marijuana and intent to distribute the same.
According to the police the debts of some of the clients sometimes ran up into tens of thousands of dollars.
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