Wow sick story, I think security is try to keep face since it's obvious they have a security problem from the inside. But hosting a international event like this they don't want the bad publicity.

Holy ****ing **** this story is crazy...

I've always felt like there was a decent possibility that there was a group of computer geniuses taking advantage of the online poker world via this kind of activity.

I went to tenerife for a week but didn't take my laptop.
Should I be worried?

Jesus, just read through this whole thread. This is **** that happens in the movies. It's good to hear that the national police has finally been brought in. The fact that this has happened on 3 EPT stops is extremely alarming. This sounds like an inside job and one that multiple people are being brought in on. I wouldn't be surprised if that guy caught on tape is monitoring this thread and has hightailed it out of there already. Just sick, really pulling for you OP and everyone else that had their **** compromised. Good luck.

If they knew who they were targeting, then why not pull this on day 1, when they could count on the players being gone almost all day? Something is really strange about the whole thing. If you had access to poker players' hotel rooms during the tournament and just needed to take their laptops out of the hotel to put a trojan on them, what are the chances you'd get found out twice?

Maybe the criminals were doing this to so many players that they got sloppy and we only know about the two times they got caught. Maybe they're just incredibly dumb.

Every poker player staying there for the tournament (actually in other hotels too) should be notified and asked whether they received the same type of strange phone calls.

Some guys have said that OP should not get into a lawsuit or contact lawyers. Some has.

People ITT that does advice to not contact lawyers haven't seen some of them click their "magic buttons" before.

You can do hell of a lot with a lawyer long time before you even get into the court system.

They can put pressure on The Arts/Ritz like no-one else.

It just seems to me that The Arts are ignoring this case and takes it very lightly, if that is the case a lawyer would probably make sure they get something to think about. Especially in this case where the evidence is clear and more than one HS Player as a similar history with the hotel which makes Jeans story more believable.

Well either he is one of the most incredibly incompetent 'heads' of security in a 5* hotel operating anywhere, or he is in on it. I don't see how there is a 3rd option.

Couple comments

1) From an outsiders POV ie hotel staff do you understand how liitle they will comprehend the severity of having a laptop temporarily lost and then shortly after found / returned. They would not appreciate the amount of funds held online, potential for online hacking / scamming etc so I think consider their lack of response with some reasonableness.

2) Stars, as they always seem to do seem to have done over and above what would be expected of them in this case. For people to even mention that they are in any way responsible is absolutely ridiculous. Credit to Stars.

It isn't close to above and beyond and no one thinks they are in any way responsible wtf?

If players are not secure in the hotel this is terrible for the tournament they are running, in the hotel. People have also won Stars packages and are staying there. Not difficult to see that.

And for the people that are ruling out the possibility of involvement from one or more EPT employees -
I know of one tournament before Berlin where a large sum went missing out of the prize pool, and PokerStars kept it to themselves and made up the difference to save face.
So it should definitely be considered a real possibility.

This. Definitely really weird they wouldn't go into the rooms right after the day 1 started.

gross. interested to see how this develops

Hopefully all ends well Jens!

OP has missed the picture slightly, no doubt from being in such an emotional state but its pretty clear whats going on I would think.

Poker Stars and the Hotel have a huge interest in not letting such info get out. The lowest level Hotel staff obv do not give a ****. But the 2nd level are trained to cover up anything they reasonable can and protect the hotels' ass.

Poker Stars employee and the Hotel's employees at any level higher than that have a huge interest in protecting the relationship of the hotel, and will do so at most costs of they feel they can sweep it under the rug.

If this were an elite criminal operation it would have been quite a feat, but given the events its obviously amateurs. Since its CLEARY amateurs then they CLEARY had inside help. Very likely in the form of the maid service and the staff that changes the keys.

They won't let you see the video until they find out what can be dealt with it internally (deleting tapes, and telling you the cameras weren't working!).

The staff will try to confuse the victims long enough to see if things can be brushed aside (obv can't be by now), whether they were involved or not.

Is this standard? I haven't ever gotten these calls, but I haven't stayed at many 5 star hotels. This seems EXTREMELY exploitable, and the hotel should be sued for this practice alone imo. You can just call, pretend to be a maid, and ask when the person is likely to leave their room.

YOU are in that special case!!! Absolutely need to see who's been in your room I would go back down and not leave until I see my key report. Tell them all the players demand it. You ABSOLUTELY have been violated here as well. EVERY player needs to audit there key report.

If stars doesn't change the venue from this then the players clearly have zero pull in such important matters. Their relationship with the hotel should NOT supersede where the players want to spend there money, especially when it concerns their safety and well being.

So PokerStars WCOOP is about to start this Sunday right, they have this stop in Barcelona right before it starts, they send everyone to this one hotel and don't really do **** about these complaints and no one thinks PokerStars is involved lol.

Seems like PStars and hotel staff are involved in this theft, I wouldn't stay anywhere where they tell you to go/reserve rooms for you etc it's like they are setting players up to be sitting ducks.

{Not saying it was PokerStars but it was PokerStars} gif

Hope you guys affected don't lose anything and go the US Embassy people are something idk the people you are going to are obv trying to cover it up hotel security/pokerstars security etc

I've said it before and will say it again, if you use a laptop just for poker shoot some epoxy into all the ports and USB drives. There is no more effective way from preventing physical attacks on your system.

After hearing about this, I'd immediately install something like YAWCAM on my computer that can detect motion and upload images automatically to an offsite web server.

I'd leave my computer password protected but on in a position like you were sitting down for a poker session online so it has plenty of time to take and upload pics of the perpetrator.

The brilliant part is the windows password hacks I'm aware of currently require a computer reboot so you'll get pictures of them grabbing and turning your computer off and will never know they're caught. Even if they do figure it out, if the server is password protected and you don't access it from your laptop before accessing the pictures (they may have a keylogger installed to scrape passwords) there's no way they can destroy evidence.

Also, no matter whether it's an inside job or security there is truly incompetent, you'll have proof right there as to whodoneit.

It seems clear hotel security at the very least was in on this or is covering up the involvement of someone within the hotel (second possibility is more likely, actually). Total incompetence might be possible when it came to the security guy 'mis-explaining' the key log, but it's doubtful. More likely he was trying to push you away from the truth and get you on a different track (doubting your friend). There is no way this guy would misunderstand such a simple log.

Also, the calls that morning and the ones to Ignat should be looked at. Did they originate inside the hotel? This is easy to trace and should have been done.

As others have mentioned, the timing is suspicious with regards to people getting in and out within minutes of you leaving/arriving. Staff would be far more likely to pull this off than outsiders. This goes for all the cameras that 'aren't working'. What a coincidence. Also, the fact that people knew you had changed rooms indicates hotel personnel involvement or at least assistance. I suggest strongly you contact your embassy, preferably before you leave and explain all of this to them and ask that they bring pressure on the Hotel to work out just how much of an inside job this was. Explain carefully just how much money is at stake here and that the National Police are now involved.
Good luck in getting to the bottom of this and great job in writing the OP in a second (or third) language.

This is hilarious...yet effective against at least fair amount of potential threats.

Good luck, OP. This is quite the ****storm. For everyone in the poker community and for your own peace of mind, I hope you follow through to the fullest extent of the law.

Best of luck with this

Subbing with the hope of hearing some positive results

Couple of things I have noticed having just read through this thread and re-looked at log:

1) Some of the timings for attempted access have doubles (presumably a double-scan of the key or something). However at 13:32:03 and 13:32:21, there are two scans at the exact same time, but with a different key code?

2) The maid room service at 14:54:26 - firstly why would there have been room service called, and secondly could they have seen anyone, seeing as the other code was trying to access the door less than 2 minutes before? Is this keycode trackable to a certain member of staff?

Wow, what a mess this is.. Hope PS and the police are able to smoke out those insiders, shouldnt be to hard as this was clearly an amatur job (luckily). Wish PS was more involved, but its obv tough, and especially if they only had 1 security guy on site. Still cant belive the hotels actions in all this, what a bunch of ****** amaturs, and trying to pin it on your friend, lying straight to Your face??!! That hotel is a such a joke and deserves all the negative attention they could possibly get!!!!

Its hassle but people could potensially put the harddrive in the safe while traveling.

The fact that whoever is behind this has been making loads of calls to the rooms suggests that they have no more sophisticated method of finding out when someone is likely to be there.

Anyone from the poker scene deliberately targeting players could tell very easily when the rooms were going to be vacant. I would be surprised if this was a poker specific crime rather than a general identity theft/card cloning type of scam.

jeans, will you give your computer (im obv assuming that you will not be using it anymore from this point onwards) to a very skilled IT guy so that he can pinoint what exactly was done with it?

It would be really nice if you did that and come back to us ITT so we can know what the culprits were after-