Guilty plea entered in slot machine scheme
The brother of a former analyst for the state's largest casino company pleaded guilty Tuesday in an elaborate slot-machine scheme to unlawfully win $863,895 on the Strip.
Danny Ahn pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson to three charges: trafficking in, production and use of counterfeit access devices; fraudulent transactions with access devices; and conspiracy to commit access device fraud. Dawson set an Aug. 22 sentencing date.
Ahn acknowledged in his plea agreement to being a middleman for his brother, Tony Ahn, who pleaded guilty last week to spearheading the scheme that exploited stolen player's club points at what was then known as MGM Mirage. Tony Ahn is to be sentenced Aug. 6 before U.S. District Judge James Mahan on the same three charges.
As an MGM Mirage analyst, Tony Ahn had access to valuable players club information. He used his company position to identify regular customers with unused free play points, transferred the points to counterfeit players club cards and recruited people to gamble with the cards at the company's casinos along the Strip, court documents in the case allege.
MGM Mirage and law enforcement authorities eventually got wise to the scheme, even tracking the group's interactions on Facebook.
Free play points earned by thousands of MGM Mirage club members, many of whom lived outside Nevada, were stolen between July 2009 and July 2010, the court documents allege.
The company under its new name, MGM Resorts International, owns 16 casinos in Nevada, including 10 on the Strip.
Three other indicted members of Ahn's ring, Joseph Ramirez, David Evans and David Pecor, have pleaded guilty and are waiting to be sentenced.
All five defendants have agreed to pay back the $863,895.
Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.
