Four individuals were arrested by the BRB, the Banditry Repression Brigade on 18 January. They are suspected of having placed undeclared slot machines in various bars in the Paris region and of having shared the sums bet by customers with the managers of these establishments. In police custody, they admitted the facts.
Poker and Russian roulette games were running at full speed, but outside of any legal framework, in about thirty bars in Ile-de-France, all departments combined. The four suspects, including three members of the same family, French of Portuguese origin, are suspected of having toured establishments to provide managers with undeclared slot machines.
In these harbors where the bosses let themselves be carried away by the prospect of easy money, the winnings were paid in cash and the stakes landed straight in the pockets of the managers and the crooked suppliers of these machines.
What to share each month up to 40,000 euros, according to a source close to the investigation. The four suspects making their fortnightly collection rounds. Some machines also allowed direct online play, via servers hosted in the United States, Eastern Europe and Australia.
Aged 27 to 51, the suspects were arrested last Tuesday by investigators from the BRB, Brigade for the Repression of Banditry, after a little over a year of investigations which led them to Luxembourg where two bars were also concerned and where the wife of one of the individuals resided.
In total, the investigators attribute to the quartet 37 facts. They seized in search twenty slot machines and nearly 10,000 euros. The suspects were indicted on January 20.