BRITISH-based internet gambling companies were urgently consulting their lawyers yesterday about the risk of being targeted by US prosecutors in the wake of the arrest in America of the chief executive of BetOnSports.

The mounting concern comes as the indictment raises the possibility that US investigators may spread their net wider than those already named. The document says that the defendants “and others, known and unknown” constituted a gambling enterprise that conducted unlawful computer and telephone-based betting.

Another British company, Sports on the Internet Ltd, is described in the indictment as a “front for or supporter of the [illegal gambling] enterprise . . . whose funding and services benefited the enterprise”.

Julian Knowles, an extradition expert at Matrix Chambers, told The Times that Britain would refuse to send suspects to America for breaking anti-gambling laws, but might extradite them if accused of other illegal activities emerging from investigations.

Mr Knowles said: “Let’s suppose they were just accused under the gambling laws: they would not be liable for extradition for that because a prerequisite of extradition is whether what you are accused of doing in a foreign state is also a crime in the UK if you had done it here.”

But evading taxes, for example, might result in extradition.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said yesterday that Britain would consider requests for extradition based on crimes arising from US investigations into illegal gambling.

Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that US law enforcement agencies have closely tracked the activities of BetOnSports and its founders, executives and close associates for more than a decade.

According to the indictment, Gary Kaplan, the online betting company’s US-based founder, was arrested in May 1993 for operating an illegal gambling business in and around New York.

After his arrest, authorities allege, Mr Kaplan relocated to Florida, where he continued to take bets. The company then shifted offshore to Aruba and Antigua and took bets via toll-free phone numbers and later, via the internet, from clients in the US.

More recently, police and other investigators have been tracking the activities of BetOnSports and three closely linked marketing companies, called Mobile Promotions, Direct Mail Expertise, and DME Marketing & Fulfillment. All three companies and several executives are named in the indictment, including their founder and owner, William Lenis, and his nephew, Manny Lenis. The companies are accused of helping BetOnSports to run gambling operations in the United States and of spreading false advertising about the company.

COUPLE FIGHT EXTRADITION MOVE

A COUPLE yesterday asked the High Court to agree that fast-track extradition laws do not apply to them because the United States first sought their extradition before the measures came into force.

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