KOSTROMA, April 8 (RIA Novosti) – A special police force in the central Russian city of Kostroma busted an illegal casino with a daily income of 500,000 rubles ($16,000), the Interior Ministry’s regional department reported Monday.
Police seized 38 one-armed bandits and 213,000 rubles ($6,800), the ministry’s department in the Kostroma Region, located to the northeast of Moscow, said in a statement.
The slot machine hall was on the second floor of a nonresidential building in Kostroma. The illegal casino’s security was ensured by double metal doors, security guards and 15 surveillance cameras inside and outside the hall.
An investigation is underway.
Illegal casinos sprung up across Russia since a law came into force in July 2009 banning gambling everywhere except four designated remote zones: in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, south Siberia's Altai Territory, Primorye in the Far East and in southern Russia near the Sea of Azov.
In a crackdown in early 2011, a number of officials, including Moscow Regional Prosecutor Alexander Mokhov and Deputy Prosecutor Alexander Ignatenko, were suspended after police found evidence that they covered up an illegal gambling ring in return for a share of the profits.
