Online poker payment processor sentenced in US

(AP) — A man accused of helping online poker companies move billions of dollars in illegal gambling proceeds overseas from U.S. customers has been sentenced to three years in prison.

Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York ordered the sentence Thursday for Ira Rubin.

Prosecutors say Rubin made it appear that money processed by poker companies via U.S. banks was actually the proceeds of transactions on websites for golf stores and other businesses.

Rubin was among a dozen people charged in a prosecution that shut down the three largest Internet poker companies operating in the United States.

He has been held without bail after he was arrested in Guatemala in April 2011 as he prepared to travel to Thailand. Authorities said the U.S. citizen had lived in Costa Rica since 2008.

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