Really? It's that hard to keep other people/players off of your computer? Bull****.

Or maybe you mean that we all need to trust people to run our own little scams.

still waiting for something credible or evidence .

this isnt really a confession , they locked someone in a hotel room and demanded answers . which as said before is probably a felony .

Yes, it is similar in austria. The article talks about this later:
My translation:

Seems more like a citizen's arrest to me. Would you call someone that tackles a purse snatcher a kidnapper also?

Okay. They probably should have went to the police first, but still was the confession beaten out of him? Are there any signs of the confession being forced by extreme measures?

Of course the confession was coerced, aren't they all? Even innocent people will confess to crimes they didn't commit. Did that happen in this case? Possible, but not likely imo.

Well it looks like the victims get prosecuted as well. No trifle at all what they have done! (Duress and imprisonment)

Interesting quote by a police speaker:

"Für uns ist das ein einmaliger Fall", sagt Polizeisprecher Santin. Für derartige Ermittlungen sei man gar nicht gewappnet.

translation:

"For us that is a unique case", says police speaker Santin. For such investigations we are unprepared.

The most stupid thing they could have done. Congratulations.

Wow, I feel so bad for everybody victimized by this sociopathic scumbag. I am sure m.a. probably followed his victims from site to site and played them under dozens of names. Making it so much worse is that the perpetrator was a so-called friend.

A HS player from Holland (lives in London) has given an intervieuw.
He lives there with a couple of friends.
They're all Pokerpro.(in one house)
Max did connect himself to the group.
He seeks 'friends' if you know what I mean.

And he owned them later online.
But not with his known account.
He was talking about 3 differend screennames on PS.
(and also some on ipoker and partypoker)
(It did cost him like $30.000)

one of the guys had his laptop for repair given 2 an expert.
The expert did find a trojan that the AV didn't nottice.
Still the 'house' didnt link it.
Until the HS started his computer and the other guy noticed something that his PC did do also before the repair.

They closed in the people how could have acces to all off theire PC's.
Thats how they came to maximilian Ashkar.
The scam will be like $3million.

some points he mentionend :
The day after he arrives in London Max came by.
4 day's later he bought a new computer.
7 days later Max came by again.
After that he got owned by a couple off new guys.
Who only played him. And followed him true differend limmits.
made hero calls and thinn value raisses.
It were all german accounts.

They have all killed the virus so it will be a hard game to prove !!
Also Max isn't that stupid because i understand he didn't over do it.
I mean Max owned opponents by checkraisin 100% when they had nothing.
Playin draws passive against made hands.
Max never goes further in a hand where opponent has the nuts.
Over aggresive when opponent has a weak draw.
But he never called a bluff catcher with King high or something.

Most victims lived in London.
One big happy family

(pray he will get punnised btw)

damn surprised there isnt more attention toward this considering on how much money was allegedly scammed

OUCH. I played quite a bit with this guy as Mexx86 on PS. ( down smallish overall). Not sure if any other screennames or on ftp. Does anyone know all the accounts he used?? I don't think I knew him at all in real life, so I hope I am safe.

i'd have done worse

Wondering how its possible to install the trojan in the first place. Would never let a stranger onto my computer (without standing behind him and looking what he does). Also if im not at my computer it is in hibernation and i have to type a password in order to wake it up. Maybe "your house" is a bit naive?

Sry though for the scam and i hope things get settled.

+1 ;s

There probably would be if there'd been a shred of evidence presented so far.
There hasn't been.

I can safely say I've not let a single other person near my poker computer which has a full TrueCrypt system partition, but I'm not naive enough to think that if someone was determined to stuck a USB key in, that they couldn't get away with it.

If you can keep people off your computer - well done. Can you keep them off your LAN? How would you prevent a man in the middle attack with a fake pokersite update or holdem-manager update? What about compromised webpages where you download pokertracker or something? How about a compromised twoplustwo running some exploit kit?

All I'm saying is that there are hundreds of ways to get compromised, and saying "I'm smart enough to keep people away from my computer" is at best naive and unpractical. We can all get caught out on any given day. I'd never let anyone stick a USB drive into my poker machine, but we all need to trust people - not to "run our little scams", as you put it. You trust your ISP, people you share a house with, the poker sites, websites, operating system, software, etc.

SteadyState/DeepFreeze. Disk encryption. End of. Laughable that some people don't even get that.

I'll give you physical access to my encrypted laptop, have fun doing anything to it except wiping it clean.

Family can put pressure on him to repay. IF you scam people you should expect your whole life to fall apart.

I hope so. It's one of the things we should be most looking forward to -- criminal charges for people who cheat and scam. Not just a slap on the wrist and freezing of an account.

Ok. So you quoted the info on the family so the post is seen by more people? (Mods must have deleted the post, but it lives on through your quote. Nice job.)

^this

...still no evidence ?

There are laptop hardware keyloggers for sale today. Tomorrow these laptop hardware keyloggers will get smaller and smaller and more and more sophisticated.

Are you really sure you'll give anyone physical access to your encrypted laptop?

I take it you're only using password(s), not two-factor authentification. In that case it's not far-fetched (rembember that we're in a "online poker scam with trojan" thread) to picture someone taking your laptop apart in a few minutes (there are cool tutorials out there as to how to do that for any laptop and with a bit of practice --yup, I've took laptops aparts lots of time-- it's trivial to do) and installing a hardware laptop keylogger.

You cannot rule that out and seen the money at stakes, I'm sure that some people would be willing to "have fun" should you physically handle them your laptop.

"Worse than no security is the illusion of security" goes the saying...

Now if you've got an encrypted system that can only be decrypted using two-factors auth I'm all ears

I've dismantled my share of laptops and find your statement above difficult to believe. Laptops usually have a minimum of 8 tiny recessed screws on their bottom plate designed to make drive-by dismantling difficult. Furthermore, laptop dismantling is not a one-size-fits-all task. Each brand or model has its own set of dismantling requirements. I often have to consult the laptop's hardware manual before fully dismantling.

Once separated, you'll probably have to make multiple careful disconnections to remove the keyboard, which is essential to get to the laptop's innards. In addition, after dismantling you'll have to reconnect and screw everything back together. The entire task will surely take longer than a few minutes and you can't make a mistake.

In addition, the admittedly nominal Google search I did on hardware laptop keyloggers indicated that such devices are not commonly available for installation inside a laptop, which are usually already tightly packed with hardware.