[Louis Cypher]

By MICHELE McPHEE
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF


Luck ran out yesterday for a $30 million-a-year numbers operation that called itself The Corporation and used mom-and-pop stores throughout the city as betting parlors, law enforcement officials said.
An early morning roundup by the NYPD and Brooklyn prosecutors, in a sting investigators dubbed Operation Losing Bet, netted 35 arrests, more than $200,000, two defaced handguns and reams of scrawled bets, officials said.

Investigators raided 29 stores in Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn and New Jersey, including florists and beauty parlors.

"These criminals had established footholds all across the city and were using neighborhood shops as fronts for their illegal gambling enterprise," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said he will sock ringleaders with a $3.4 million lawsuit and charge the group with enterprise corruption.

The investigation into The Corporation began a year ago, when detectives were tipped to several illegal gambling locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The group's alleged leader, Luis Perez of Manalapan, N.J., ran the enterprise from a Bronx apartment, where cops said he had a "cash stash," authorities said.

Cops seized more than $50,000 in a safe there yesterday, Kelly said.

Originally published on June 6, 2003