17 Arrested in Raids on Alleged Bookmaking Ring

Southern California’s largest illegal sports bookmaking operation was crippled Monday when sheriff’s deputies swept through five counties and arrested 17 people, including a man believed to be the leader of the enterprise, which netted $5 million a month, authorities said.

About 100 deputies fanned out through Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Orange counties and made all of the arrests at about 7 a.m., according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Authorities said they wanted to stop the ring before the next wave of illegal betting, expected to hit when the National Basketball Assn. finals begin Wednesday. One suspect was still at large by day’s end, however.

“This was the biggest bookmaking organization for sports betting in Southern California,” said Lt. David Kading of the Sheriff’s Special Investigations Bureau vice detail. “Hopefully, we have put them out of business for a short period of time, until they bail themselves out.”

Bettors found out about the widespread operation by word of mouth, and it was so sophisticated that regular customers used special identification codes, authorities said. For those owed money from recently placed bets, authorities had this advice: All bets are off.

Among those arrested Monday were Kale Kalustian, 65, of Granada Hills, the alleged head of the ring, and two top aides, Walter Miller, 45, also of Granada Hills, and Ron LaForgia, 42, of Thousand Oaks, authorities said.

But Kading said illegal bookmaking is so rampant that authorities hold out little hope the operation will remain dormant for long.

Kalustian and some of his alleged associates had been arrested at least once before, in 1986, on suspicion of masterminding a similar, though smaller, ring. Authorities allege that this time, Kalustian had taken over at least some of the control of a massive illegal operation from a man named Ron Sacco, a California-based bookmaker believed to have run the largest sports betting scheme in the world until his indictment last year.

“Kalustian had been an associate of Sacco for years, and when the Sacco organization was somewhat dismantled, Kalustian flowed in and filled the void,” Kading said. “If (Kalustian) goes to prison along with his top lieutenants, someone else will flow in and fill the void. That is the nature of the game.”

All 17 people arrested were booked for investigation of conspiracy to commit bookmaking and were being held in lieu of $200,000 bail each. Arraignments had not been scheduled.

The investigation into the current ring began nine months ago and there had been more than a dozen arrests prior to Monday. Kading said that the ring specialized in taking bets for professional and college basketball and football games, as well as betting at major horse racing tracks, and that clerks took the bets from a variety of locales and phone numbers in order to thwart authorities.

At least part of the operation was believed to be run by Kalustian out of his home in the 12000 block of Bambi Place in Granada Hills, where the alleged kingpin was believed to be making “the lion’s share” of the profits, Kading said.

“We knew Kalustian was the head of the biggest organization in Southern California and we targeted him,” said Kading.

In all, authorities seized $82,408 in cash from five locations, including $34,099 from Kalustian and $29,791 from Miller. Also seized and displayed at a news conference Monday afternoon were computers, financial ledgers, cellular and regular phones, and tape recorders that allegedly were used to record the bets and transactions.

Besides Kalustian and his alleged lieutenants, the 14 other suspects arrested Monday were clerks who were paid between $200 and $300 a week in cash to take bets over the phone, authorities said. They were arrested at their homes in Quartz Hill, Bellflower, Sherman Oaks, Westlake, Century City, Pico Rivera, Los Angeles, Diamond Bar, Ontario, Duarte, Whittier, San Pedro, Rancho Mirage in Riverside County and Los Alamitos in Orange County.

Orange County authorities went along on some of the raids because they too have been investigating the alleged ring, Kading said.

Authorities described the raids as a major success, given the elusive nature of sports betting operations. Such rings spread their operations over a vast region so some associates will have time to escape and destroy evidence even while others are being arrested. But in this case, authorities, using a battle plan several hundred pages long, coordinated the raids in secrecy and made the arrests all at the same time.

By late afternoon, only suspected clerk Robert Tondreau was still at large, and authorities said they had seized $2,000 in cash from his San Pedro home. “He’ll undoubtedly miss that right away,” Kading said. “He’ll realize everyone got arrested except for him. He may hide, but we know who he is.”

Authorities conceded, however, that they believed others were involved. They said they decided to concentrate on 18 key people because of the Sheriff’s Department vice unit’s relatively small staff.

“The organization is probably larger; they go sideways, they go up, they go lateral, they go everywhere,” Kading said. “This is probably one of the biggest operations the vice detail has ever participated in. “

Some of the clerks had been arrested before in recent months, but had gone right back to work upon release, said Kading.

Kalustian himself was charged along with 11 others--including LaForgia--in 1986 with running what authorities at the time said was the largest such ring in Southern California. That operation took in more than $30 million a year in wagers, turning a net annual profit of $4 to $6 million, according to authorities. The results of that case were not immediately available because the records are not on the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office computers, a spokesman said.

But Kalustian’s current operation was much larger and more sophisticated, according to Kading, more similar in scope to the one allegedly run by Sacco.

Sacco was indicted last August along with 25 suspected aides after a five-year federal, state and local investigation. He was charged with running a $1-billion-a-year sports bookmaking ring. But a judge in Northern California revoked Sacco’s bail in recent months after authorities said he had resumed his bookmaking. Sacco currently is in federal custody awaiting trial.

After law enforcement began investigating his operation, authorities believe Sacco moved it to the Dominican Republic, where he took calls by running toll-free phone lines, authorities said.

Times special correspondent Julie Fields contributed to this story.