A longtime mafia associate and four men are accused of running a $1 million-a-year offshore betting website that shifted to online casino games after COVID canceled sporting events in 2020.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accuse Anthony Villani, 57, a Luchese crime family soldier with a history of gambling-related arrests dating to 1988, and four others of running “Rhino Sports,” a betting operation used by 400 to 1,300 gamblers a week.
An indictment was unsealed against them in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday.
From 2004 to 2020, Villani and his accomplices used the Costa Rica-based website to take the bets, and employed a web of dozens of mob-affiliated bookmakers across New York City to pay and collect money, federal prosecutors allege.
Villani, of the Westchester County community of Elmsford, moved his operation online to avoid scrutiny after he finished a four-month federal sentence on gambling charges in 2004, prosecutors said in court filings.
His alleged accomplices included Louis “Tooch” Tucci, Jr., 59, and Dennis Filizzola, 58, who worked as runners who collected bookmakers collected from customers, and James “Quick” Coumoutsos and Michael “Platinum” Praino, 44, described in court documents as “significant bookmakers and moneymakers for the business.”
Villani was caught on a wiretap talking about offering “casino games” to make money while sports were cancelled during the early part of the pandemic in 2020, and demanded no limit on how much people can bet, according to prosecutors.
“I said this ain’t f—ing monopoly money. The casino is supposed to be a score for us,” he told Tucci inside a store they owned in Bronxville, N.Y. in April 2020, prosecutors allege.
He also threatened an accomplice who mismanaged the gambling business and ran up a large debt in 2020, warning the man, “I’m telling you right now, you don’t get this money — f—ing run away,” prosecutors allege.
When FBI agents raided Villani’s Elmsford home, they found more than $407,000 in cash, a set of brass knuckles and gambling ledgers, some of them shredded, prosecutors said. Agents found more than $55,000 in Tucci’s Tuckahoe home, and more than #20,000 in Filizolla’s Cortlandt Manor home, prosecutors said.
All of the suspects expect Praino, who was arrested in West Palm Beach, Fla., are expected to be arraigned in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday.
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