New Jersey.– Detectives from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and East Orange Police Department’s Detective Bureau raided the premises of an East Orange grocery store yesterday afternoon and arrested two targets of an illegal gambling operation based on lottery numbers from the Dominican Republic.

Moise Brutus, 32, the store owner, of Irvington, and Joseph Resolus, 56, an employee, of East Orange, were taken into custody and charged with promoting gambling and possession of gambling records. They are both being held in the Essex County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail.

During the raid, detectives found several carbon slips containing illegal bets totalling thousands of dollars and $5,000 in cash. "The investigation was not long after receiving the tip, but the police suspect that they've been operating out of there for two years," one of the detectives said.

Customers buying a handwritten ticket would pick three numbers, which would be matched to the last of five numbers drawn in the Dominican national lottery.