Arizona bank has $700k seized on UIGEA charge

Well America, here is how your tax dollars are currently being spent; investigating a bank that unknowingly violated UIGEA law by processing some $733,804 in payments from the online payment processor Allied Wallet. The bank that will go down as the first to be brought up on UIGEA charges is Goldwater Bank of Arizona.

Allied Wallet owner Ahmad Kwaja is being investigated for directly processing some $13 million in payments from online poker rooms like PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, and Goldwater Bank of Arizona acted as a client for Allied Wallet according to the Department of Justice. The DOJ has reportedly asked Goldwater Bank to forfeit the $733,804 that was used to make payments to online poker players.

The real twist in the story is that Goldwater Bank received TARP funds from the Federal Government as part of the Troubled Assets Relief Program that was implemented after the financial crisis. Goldwater Bank has confirmed that the $733,804 they will forfeit to the government will have to come from their TARP money! So the government helps struggling banks with TARP funds only to seize a massive chunk of money over a vague law that doesn’t hurt anyone, and that the bank likely had no idea they were violating. Well, I guess that’s one way to make sure you get your money back.

Poker News supplied by PokerNewsBoy.com