Fairbanks police say they busted a suspected illegal gambling operation on Friday.
Five men are facing felony and misdemeanor charges in connection with the bust. The Fairbanks Police Department said in a press release Saturday the department seized $55,000-worth of equipment and $45,053 in cash from two locations associated with a single operation, which didn’t have authorization from the Alaska Department of Revenue.
Three of the men accused in the case are from Fairbanks, and the other two are from Kent, Wash., according to FPD. The defendants include Pilisega Filivaa Jr., 43, of Fairbanks; Marley Etisone Liulama, 32, of Kent; David Irae Lefau, 33, of Fairbanks; Montgomery Finau Kuresa Jr., 43, of Fairbanks; and Richard Taupea Fola, 36, of Kent.
Charging documents say officers noticed the casino-style “fish table” machines and “Fire Kirin” games last Monday while doing checks of local late-night businesses.
FPD spokesperson Teal Soden said those checks, which she called “proactive,” are a regular part of an officer’s job.
“If they have a high level of calls during the evening, a lot of times they can’t do proactive security checks, but as time allows for they will do that, especially places that tend to be hotspots for criminal activity,” she said.
Soden said FPD frequently gets called to the area near one of the locations in this case – 510 Old Steese Highway – in particular. She said those calls are often drug-related and “in the parking lot area,” and that nothing specific led officers to check inside the building last Monday.
“I don’t know that there was anything particularly different about that time. It’s just that we’d received so many complaints about the business, and they had the ability to do some proactive policing,” she said.
After the checks on Monday, police then obtained and executed search warrants on Friday at the Old Steese Highway location as well as the other one, at 1521 Stacia Street, according to charging documents.
Police say they found cash as well as handwritten and electronic ledgers, which contained evidence showing the two addresses were part of the same enterprise, including a spreadsheet on a laptop that listed wins and losses at both addresses. Lefau had also spoken with officers at the Old Steese Highway location on Monday but was working at the Stacia Street location on Friday, when the search warrants were executed, according to the court documents.
The FPD press release says officers seized seven cell phones, six computers and one vehicle in addition to gambling equipment and money. According to the court documents, officers also found a 9mm handgun on Fola, who was prohibited from having the firearm due to a previous felony robbery conviction in Washington.
All of the men are charged with felony first-degree promoting gambling, felony first-degree possession of gambling records and misdemeanor possession of gambling devices. Filivaa and Kuresa were also cited under Fairbanks General Code for not having a business license, and Fola faces a third-degree weapons misconduct charge.
The men were arraigned on Saturday in Fairbanks Superior Court. Their next appearance in court is scheduled for Nov. 25.