The Nation - News from Feb. 9, 1989

A witness whose identity and voice were disguised told Senate investigators that organized crime families control many of the largest bingo games on Indian reservations, in one instance bilking a reservation out of more than $500,000 a year. The witness admitted to managing a reservation bingo game for an organized crime family and said mobsters anxious to break into the “wide-open” Indian gambling market have done so by bribing or intimidating tribal leaders. Federal law enforcement officials acknowledged the existence of some ties between organized crime and Indian bingo but said the problem was not yet “a substantial and consistent threat.” FBI agent Richard Elroy, however, said tribal corruption is “pervasive” and added that he was “hard-pressed to come up with a single tribe in Oklahoma that is not touched by it.”