Kind of disagree. Might need to put immediate pressure on hotel to 'act right' before case goes cold. The security guy already tried to blame the friend without doing much, if any, investigation.

If no one in hotel management is involved in this, I would expect they would be pretty thoroughly investigating, because the last thing they want is crooks working for them that are going to be an ongoing problem. What they might not want to do is share any of the results of what they find. If that's the case, waiting a few days before taking further action isn't going to change anything. There is a small chance that acting prematurely might put them even more into defense mode rather than sharing some info.

If someone from hotel management is involved in this, they already know what happened, and again waiting a few days isn't going to make a difference.

Although I suppose if it is management, and OP wants to get corporate involvement before anyone gets a chance to clean up a lot of evidence, quicker action might be warranted - but I would expect any clean up of that nature would've already happened by now. Regardless, I expect the next day or so should give OP a pretty good idea if this is just a big cover-up at the top or if they're seriously investigating this now, and he can proceed accordingly.

lol you are not really accusing 0human0 of being part of the scam? that´s even more ridiculous than the accusations of the hotel security regarding jeans friend henri

Of all the asinine things you've posted in the thread, this is the one that proves you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Arts does not give one **** if Stars comes back. The Arts conference center is one of the most sought after conference spaces in Europe, and they could fill 10 days in late summer instantly if Stars decided to cancel for future seasons, and because the tournament must be held in Casino Barcelona (which the Arts conference center is physically connected to), Hotel Arts is literally the ONLY option for PokerStars if they want there to be an EPT Barcelona in the future.

Also, do you really think PS is not doing everything in their power at this point to fix this behind the scenes? It seems like it took them a day to realize how serious of a security breach this was, but I guarantee they're going all-out at this point to find the perpetrator.

You do realise how transparently fake your level is? Surely? Using first names we all know and pretending you play high stakes is starting to get pretty stale.

Another useless point but Stars should make the next spanish EPT stop in Madrid to show they care about there players. Probs wont tho...

I'm still not convinced that this scam is directly targeting poker players and not identity theft. I hope that someone gets their laptop checked by experst to see what exactly was done to it.

Most likely there are person(s) on the inside. It appears that the room keys are deprogrammed intentionally. I think the scammers are doing their dirty work inside the room and are sometimes still there when people are trying to enter their rooms.

That might explain why two of the laptopps were temporarilry stolen- the scammers were in the middle of planting whatever, couldn't leave the latop, but had to leave the room before someone came back with a reprogrammed key.

I just don't think the scammers are leaving the rooms with the laptops, plus, the tournament is taken place inside the hotel so they can't be sure when someone decides to go back to their room.

soooo sick.

If the laptops are in fact infected with a trojan that gives access to holecards, a regular that used to crush the games and wins again will raise a lot less questions than new accounts that pop up and start to win

As for being a victim himself that seems to be a good way to cover your own ass or to be kept in the loop on any possible investigation

There is no doubt in me that any mastermind would come from within the poker community

It could just be unrelated to online poker though, those laptops need to be analyzed asap

I just read Jeans story and I feel for you man. What a ****ty experience.
In all honesty I must admit that when you met 0human0 in the elevator, and they way he described what had happened to him, more or less exactly what you experienced. AND 2 days later, it doesnt feel right, again I dont know anything about him, just basing this on what you wrote.

First off, he knew what had happened to you, changed his story slightly in terms of the calls etc. But in general exactly the same, go figure.. Why would this happen two days later when these people behind this scam must have known they were investigated.
Then he just happened to meet you in the elevator and asked how you were doing without really knowing you?

Obviously some of the hotel staff was in on this scam. But with who?

I would investigate Ignats whereabouts since he arrived, through all the camera footage stars have and possibly from the help of the hotel, highly doubt they will help in the matter.
Again, the same **** might have happened to Ignat and many more, but why not make sure he is not shady?

Until then, I would not play any poker against a single account you cant fully trust 100%.

Stars should also get serious with the police to try and get to the bottom of this.
With your type of money I would hire people to investigate this issue for you.

Every single angle that is slightly possible should be investigated fully. This is not about personal feelings, only about understanding fully what happened and what these people did and/or tried to do.

Why are people saying they will boycott the EPTs, don't stars sponsor most of these big events? Surely if you boycott the EPT you have to boycott all the others

You don't need to take ridiculously high security precautions to prevent this sort of lapjacking. If someone wants to install spyware without your knowledge it's a simple matter to thwart them - use a little physical lock, like a gun's trigger guard lock, that requires a key to open. Anyone messes with it you'll know. Seriously guys, you have thousands upon thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars riding on your computer. Treat it like a safe.

I've read the whole thread, and this is just sickening. I can't get an even more sickening thought out my head that has been touched on. This kind of scam has been happening for years, the EPT events have had reports of this happening in more than just Barcelona. But surely for this scam to be worthwhile there must be at least one, probably more winning high stakes players clever enough to slowly milk accounts actively involved.

I'm not pointing the finger at anyone, but surely someone could come up with some way of checking HH's of anyone with weird results like the player who has big downswings on the 4 year old laptop who posted in either this or the other thread (can't find it right now).

If this were done in some mass way similar to the cake investigation it might show something right?, although who knows if this would catch a very clever thief.

This **** is just way too deep imho.

Yes I concur.
This is sickening but pls people don´t be naive, this has happened and will continue to happen.

People behind this needs to be in prison, no way around that. It HAS to happen. Security in the gambling industry is as poor as it can be and it turns over more money then most industries out there. Unreal!

Do u guys think its possible that some1 put a trojan in my laptop even if it has password? I mean I know nothing is impossible, but how difficult is this? I use w7 and its a dell

And yes, I played ept barcelona and did let my laptop 2 days in my room

pretty easy solution as a high stakes player to buy a laptop security case. dont see why stars should need to molly coddle all these high stakes players. its about time they became street wise and competent regarding security and these continual scams will diminish or at least not affect them. its no wonder that crooks target these people. they are ridic lax when it comes to security, have lots of money online and the only repurcusions for the most part is a sob story thread on 2p2 (talking in general not specifically about this scam).

in any other walk of life if someone stole thousands from you which is the case for a lot of staking rolls/trojan scams there would be repurcusions through the law or other means but so many of these seem to get a free pass with the exception of a little smearing of their name on 2p2.

Jeans' laptop had a password. I think 0human0's had one too. Apparently it's not difficult at all to get past the windows login password.

This is crazily scary, hope this all works out and you get it all resolved.

I'm sorry to hear this story but i have two good advice:

1. Encrypt your whole disk - using integrated BitLocker or third party solution
2. Use virtual machines to surf internet (VmWorkstation/HyperV/OracleVirtualBox)

This is so obvious that it is an inside job. When the security staff try to rubbish any story then tell you that cameras which are working are then not working then it is obvious that an insider at the hotel gained entry. for someone to have got in to your room they would have needed to get either a staff key or gone and got a key from reception and pretended to be you or Henri.
Your laptop was 100% hacked. But what you should have done was get it checked by a computer security consultant just to see what software had been loaded and if any key loggers or Trojan horse viruses being installed it would have then told you who the information would have been sent to when you logged on. I find Pokerstars were pretty negligent when not taking this seriously as their software security team could have inspected your computer to see what information these hackers were after. Just don't go back to that hotel and have a meeting with pokerstars for the horrendous way in which you was treated.

we could have worked out what your post was regarding without quoting the full OP

Is anyone else thinking how deep this could run, I've played in poker clubs where laptops of HS players were just sat around, I know of players who have lost 6 figures playing cash games. To get to the point, how much cost is involved in planting these trojans, if it's cheap wouldn't it be wise for someone to come up with a poker specific tool to search out these trojans or whatever is used, this type of theft could be really widespread, and i'm not just hoping that my downswings weren't because I played bad.

If the perpetrators realized Jeans has noticed his laptop has been stolen I find it weird they decided to return it. If they dont return it it's simply a theft which likely happens quite a bit around the world. By returning the laptop it becomes clear they tried to infect his laptop to benefit later on. I think it's too optimistic for them to think Jeans simpy shrugs it off as him simply not seeing the laptop on the desk the first time (very close to a 0% chance for this).

Had they not returned the laptop this case would not have gotten this much attention. By taking it, returning it, taking it again and then leaving it in the lobby to be found they basically outed themselves. No chance that after all this Jeans would use his computer to play poker. They probably should have realized this and try to make it look like a simple theft.

In Ignat's case it's even more ridiculous: "I then went to reception, told them what happened, went back at my room and the laptop was left in front of my room"

They leave it in front of the room? Very optimistic to think that after all this they would continue using the laptop like before. Lucky for them and all the poker player staying there the people behind this are not very smart.

Also, Stars security seems to be rather incompetent in this as well. I mean, how the hell did the hotel security convince stars security manager that Henri was behind this? And it only took Jeans and Henri 5 minutes to realize what was going on after reading the entry log. Very sloppy by Stars security manager.

EDIT: When I say stars was sloppy and incompetent I'm not insinuating they might be in on this. (Which would be super scary).

a) The 0human0 incident has someone (or is it 2 people?) on camera. Unless all of this was faked as well, cant see how people can suggest he was involved.


b) Why would the laptop ever need to be taken out of the room? The "Hackers were in the room when Jeans tried to enter, so took the laptop out when Jeans went to reception" theory is not logicial at all, as they would know it would be completley obvious that it was missing.

Taking a laptop from clear view, then returning it to the same spot (as if nothing happened) seems phenominally stupid. A non-poker criminal, who wasnt interested in hacking at a later date, would surely just steal the laptop as a 'consolation prize'.


c) "He answers that the laptop was not actually found in the lobby, but someone had brought it to some hotel employee in the second floor, and in that place the cameras did not work."

Needs more attention. This part sounds seriously shady, and is the greatest indicator of an inside-job. Again, why on earth wouldnt the thief just steal the laptop? What logic is there of a thief stealing a laptop, then personally handing it back to a member of staff? Why not just steal it, or why not just leave it on the floor? The fact they have specifically said (if Jeans is remembering the conversation correct) that it was handed back to staff is crazy.

Depends on the password. If it is the Windows login password, then planting malware is relatively easy.

If it is a full disk encryption password like TrueCrypt or Bitlocket, then it is only possible with two phases:

1. The intruder first installs a program that logs the password for the full disk encryption
2. The computer owner enters the password while being logged.
3. The intruder goes to the computer, retrieves the password from the logger and then boots the computer to install the malware.

- mongeron