The private mansion of Calvin Ayre, CEO and founder of Bodog, was raided by over 60 police officers and other officials on Friday evening. According to Mr. Ayre, who coincidentally appeared on the cover of Forbes earlier this week, no arrests were made but computers and documents were seized.
The fraud department of Costa Rica's Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) ordered to raid Ayre's private mansion in Pozos de Santa Ana yesterday evening at the same time Fox Sports Net was shooting a party for the new poker reality show called "Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker".
Earlier this week Forbes Magazine published it's annual report on the world's richest people, including a few newcomers from the online poker industry, most prominently Calvin Ayre from Bodog and Ruth Parasol from PartyGaming. Calvin Ayre's pretty face even made it to the cover of Forbes. The cover story was titled "Catch me if you can" and subtitled "Calvin Ayre has gotten very rich by taking illegal bets over the Internet."
At the time of the raid Ayre was hosting a party for the poker reality show "Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker" which was filmed by Fox Sports Net and is scheduled to air in six consecutive episodes starting April 15th.
Presumably prompted by Forbes' cover story and reports on the poker tournament in Ayre's private mansion, the fraud department of the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) ordered a raid to investigate if Ayre had the necessary permits.
The raid started Friday evening at 6:30pm local Costa Rican time, and lasted for about four hours. According to Al Día, a Costa Rican newspaper, 66 officials participated in the raid including three prosecutors, a judge, 40 policeman and 15 officials from the OIJ.
The Costa Rican authorities suspected Mr. Ayre was breaking the Ley de Juegos, the Costa Rican Gambling Law, by hosting a poker game in his private mansion. But at the time of the raid no poker was played. Computers, documents and weapons found at the premises were seized, including computers belonging to the Fox Sports crew that was filming the poker tournament. The entire raid was caught on camera by Fox Sports and Jon Kelly from ExtraTV.