What an idiot for coming to the U.S. but wow he is rich!

Australian Charged With Laundering $500 Million From Gambling

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- An Australian man who operated a payment processing service has been indicted on charges his company laundered about $500 million in online gambling proceeds.

In a four-count indictment unsealed in New York on Friday, Daniel Tzvetkoff, an Australian national, has been charged with gambling conspiracy, bank fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and one count of money laundering.

Tzvetkoff, 27 years old, was arrested in Las Vegas and remained in custody late Friday.

"At this stage of the game, it's difficult to know exactly what type of evidence is out there. The allegations are certainly fantastic," said Mace Yampolsky, a lawyer for Tzvetkoff. "They are only allegations. I can't comment any further on the veracity of them."

Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office alleged Tzvetkoff's company, Intabill Inc., assisted online gambling companies in processing hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions with U.S. gamblers between February 2008 and March 2009.

During that time period, his company processed more than $543 million of transactions in the U.S.--the bulk of which were for Internet gambling businesses, prosecutors said.

The transactions were allegedly disguised so they would appear to be unrelated to gambling, prosecutors said. They were disguised to appear as repayments of short-term loans, transfer of funds to prepaid debit cards and e-commerce purchases, prosecutors said.

Tzvetkoff ceased processing online gambling transactions in March 2009, after he was accused by several Internet gambling Web sites of stealing about $100 million in gambling pay-ins from U.S. bank accounts, prosecutors said.

http://english.capital.gr/news.asp?id=947420

You'd think after being in the business of online gambling payment processing and skimming from it, the U.S. would no longer be on Mr. Tzvetkoff's list of places he wanted to visit.

Exactly. Why would he ever go there?

I'm constantly amazed by news like this. Guy was smart enough to start this business and then skimmed off the top, cheated, and came to the worst place on Earth to try to get away from it. Wow.

Arrogance. And white powder makes you over-confident.

Technical term - Brazen - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=brazen

I don't really understand what he's done.... can someone break it down into layman's terms?

Was his company processing payments for gambling websites and not paying them their money? or was he a mule for them in a larger-scale tax dodge?

Neither

Who was he ripping off then?

The US federal government.

No. He may or may not have been breaking laws, but he wasn't "ripping off" the US government.

It has been reported that he did rip off Stars and Tilt although I'm not sure exactly what he was supposed to have done. Either he didn't forward money to players making withdrawls or he didn't forward the site money he processed for deposits. But this has nothing to do with the charges against him.

Anyone know if this guy plays poker? Surely he would have made an appearance at some stage?

He must've screwed them over...

http://www.news.com.au/business/poke...-1225855239270

Hmm...so, he processed transactions for the poker site(s); stole money from the poker site(s) for his personal gain; was outed to the US govt by the players/owners he stole from; was arrested for money laundering, et al by the US govt for those same transactions for the poker site(s); and now may become the test case to prove that such transactions are not illegal because the poker site(s) are not doing anything illegal under U.S. law. Oh what a tangled web we weave...

I thought all the poker websites were Illegal in the US? ... so why do the US government care about them?... Shouldn't they go crying to the Isle of Man etc?

Highly debatable.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice...Yes.
According to one U.S. Circuit Court...No.
According to the letter of federal U.S. law...No.
According to state laws...Rarely.
According to the U.S. Constitution...No.
According to FullTilt and PokerStars...No.
According to the Governor of Kentucky...Yes.
According to States Attorneys General...mostly Yes.

I'm glad you understand all state anti-gambling laws; would you please educate the clueless attorneys general?

How about just reading this: http://theppa.org/forums/topic/578

Skallagrim

[ ] Many states Attorneys General have expressed the non-legally binding opinion that online poker is illegal in their state, so therefore online poker is illegal in their state even if their state laws don't clearly make it so, the laws were written before the existence of the internet and the old laws have not been tested in court on this issue.

[ ] By the same twisted permafrost logic, online poker must be illegal under federal law because our federal Attorney General, Eric Holder, says so despite no existing federal law saying so and no existing federal court precedent supporting such a position (just the opposite).

[ ] Therefore, law is created by Attorney General opinion, not the way the laws are actually written or applied in courts.

[x] We still get to take issues to court if we think someone like an Attorney General, the DOJ, a state Governor, etc. is incorrectly applying laws for their own agenda.

you can hardly do things in us and get away with it. thats why im a good boy.

unless your name is Bush or Cheney

...or you have $$ for a GREAT lawyer

He's actually stupid.