JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Action News obtained new video that shows us an inside look into last week’s Internet café crackdown.
It shows dozens of agents sifting through thousands of documents and collecting hundreds of computers and servers.
According to the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, investigators have seized thousands of items of evidence, including more than 400 computers and servers, 1,169 boxes of paper records, and 59 vehicles and vessels. Digital forensic specialists imaged 470 hard drives containing 160.4 terabytes of data, the equivalent of 156 million reams of paper.
Additional evidence is in the process of being logged and transported.
Investigators tracked more than $583,000 and also served warrants on the bank accounts of many of the conspirators, locating a total of $100 million.
“Clearly every time you open up a new payment book, whether you follow a new account through a banking system, you're going to find other people involved and more information will be coming forward clearly in the next couple of weeks,” said former FBI agent, Dale Carson.
Carson tells Action News, he expects more warrants and information to surface.
“This is one of the most exciting things in doing law enforcement is to get a search warrant, execute it, and to find this evidence that opens up all these doors,” said Carson.
Authorities say they seized more than $56,000 in cash and 5 million Iraqi dinars from a safety deposit box belonging to FOP President Nelson Cuba, one of dozens arrested in what investigators are calling a $300 million racketeering, gambling, and money-laundering operation involving Allied Veterans of the World, Inc. & Affiliates.
Police say Cuba's safety deposit box had $56,400 in cash. The 5 million dinars are equivalent to $4,300.
"That maybe money that's brought in by Iraqi veterans and somehow started in anticipation of needing the cash later,” said Carson. “It's really difficult to say, but unusual for sure."
Investigators also searched a storage unit of Mathis & Murphy, a local law firm where suspect Kelly Mathis works. The storage unit contained documents, according to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.
Documents from the FOP Foundation office were also confiscated.
