Alleged Denver Area Betting Ring Investigated
DENVER (CBS4/AP) - Authorities executed search warrants in the Denver metro area as part of a grand jury investigation into an alleged illegal betting ring.
Colorado Bureau of Investigation spokesman Lance Clem said Tuesday that the searches are part of a 14-month investigation. They're taking place in several cities including Denver, Aurora, and Parker.
"We believe that it was a fairly large scale operation, fairly complex," Steve Johnson with the CBI said. "Cash, currency, computer records, all sorts of things; ledger sheets, pieces of paper, it really just runs the gamut."
The alleged ring involves bookmaking, where people place bets on sporting or other events.
A home in Parker was surrounded with yellow crime tape and a CBI mobile crime unit was parked in the driveway Tuesday morning. Another home in Aurora was searched earlier in the day. At a home on the northern edge of Washington Park investigators came and went while neighbors wondered what might have been going on next door.
"They're just normal Washington Park people, as far as I know," neighbor Alan Cooper said.
Cooper has lived in the home next door for 40 years and says his neighbors are friendly, an older couple enjoying retirement.
"(I'm) proud to have them as neighbors but don't know much about their business dealings or personal life," he said.
No indictments have been issued and it was unclear whether anybody has been arrested.
The evidence collected will be used to pursue charges against four people.
"We're looking at four people and obviously the fruits of today's search warrants may result in more people that we may begin to look at," Johnson said.
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