From time to time you may have asked yourself, “How does one raise the capital to open a store below 14th Street devoted to rice pudding?” I know I have!<\/p>\n
But now we know the answer to another one of New York’s great mysteries: you don’t — instead, you open a store devoted to rice pudding in order to launder gambling profits<\/a>:<\/p>\n A multimillion-dollar sports gambling ring – allegedly masterminded by a wealthy “rice pudding entrepreneur” – was sacked yesterday when authorities raided the operation just days before Super Bowl Sunday.<\/p>\n Taking individual bets of more than $10,000 on football and baseball games, the high-stakes ring raked in about $21 million a year, said Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota.<\/p>\n The lucrative operation was headed by Peter Moceo, 45, who lives in the luxurious Trump Tower and owns a chic eatery in NoLIta, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n Investigators seized $25,000 in cash at Moceo’s Spring St. pudding shop, Rice to Riches. But Spota said it wasn’t the rice that brought Moceo his riches.<\/p>\n “We have evidence that he used [gambling] proceeds to start up and actually run Rice to Riches,” Spota said.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Post (which didn’t even have to embellish its self-evident headline, “Rice to Riches”) adds some details<\/a>, including this great quote:<\/p>\n Residents living near Moceo’s Little Italy pudding shop said they thought there was something shady about the store, which opened in April 2003.<\/p>\n “Who the heck is going to get rich off rice pudding?” asked Ozbbel Baez, a local carpenter.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Boom! Another mystery solved, which again solidifies our theory that the only people able to succeed in New York are, in fact, just doing something illegal.<\/p>\n