Eleven people, including founders of the three largest online poker companies have been charged in the latest crack down on Internet gambling. Some of Poker’s biggest names are involved – namely PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.
Daniel Tzvetkoff might be the twenty something man behind their fall.
He was described by those who knew him as a “boy wonder” and “genius” who started his first company at 13 and knew all the intricacies of e-commerce.
He made Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars millions of dollars “” and made as much as $150,000 a day for himself with his payment processing company, Intabill. Daniel had a long list of clients including travel firms, online stores and pharmaceutical companies.
Tzvetkoff was on a roll – he went from obscurity to front page news back in April 2008 when he snapped up a $28 million mega-mansion on Australia’s gold coast. He then bought a Lamborghini with the number plate “BALLER”, a mega 30m boat called Maximus and a Fortitude Valley nightclub, to entertain his friends.
Company records show Tzvetkoff drew an annual income of $500,000 and at the height of the company, drew an annual income of $2 million.
Tzvetkoff made The Sunday Mail’s 2008 Rich List, with a personal wealth of $82 million and really appeared to have it all… mid twenties.
The fall:
Federal agents arrested Daniel Tzvetkoff late last year in Las Vegas on charges of processing more than $500 million of illegal gambling transactions. He is facing four charges of bank fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to operate and financing an illegal gambling business and processing electronic funds transfers in violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
Tzvetkoff allegedly duped banks – which have bans on internet credit card gambling – into believing the gambling transactions were actually ordinary transactions.
He was then able to use what is known as the “Automated Clearing House system” (ACH) to run hundreds of millions of dollars between the US and a web of companies in the British Virgin Islands.
Tzvetkoff directed an employees to “buy some shelf companies that the BVI’s (apparently a reference to the British Virgin Islands) will own . . . We need to then rename each company to be called something process related.”
How is Daniel related to the recent shut down of the big American online poker sites?
The U.S. Attorney for New York has indicted the founders of the three largest online poker companies in the U.S. and seized their websites in a major crackdown on internet gambling.
The indictment essentially spells out a scheme by the poker companies to set up phony bank accounts to process illegal gambling transactions, either by lying to the banks about the nature of the transactions or by targeting struggling banks who needed the money to stay afloat.
Tzvetkoff was arrested in Las Vegas and charged with the same crimes those sites’ founders were charged with today: money laundering, bank fraud, wire fraud. As an Australian citizen with a lot of cash, he was considered a flight risk and was denied bail.
Then after a “secret” meeting with prosecutors last August, he was suddenly out on bail. And now his former colleagues are the ones facing serious prison time. (Irony: they ratted him out)
Daniel Tzvetkoff knows the operations of these poker sites inside and out. It was knowledge of the financial industry that allowed the Feds to operate. He’s the one man positioned to give the U.S. Attorneys everything they needed to take down similiar businesses. According to a source, Tzvetkoff “knows how to reverse-engineer transactions to determine its original source” making him very valuable to investigators.
THE RISE AND FALL OF DANIEL TZVETKOFF:
AUGUST 2001: BT Projects founded
FEBRUARY 2007: Online payment company Intabill registered
MARCH 2008: Tzvetkoff buys Hedges Avenue mansion for $28 million. Has additional property portfolio of more than $21 million
AUGUST 2008: Features on Sunday Mail Rich List worth $82 million
MARCH 2009: Buys V8 supercar team, Inta Racing
APRIL 2009: Sacks 96 staff at his Intabill office
JULY 2009: BT Projects placed in liquidation with debts of $80 million
JULY 2009: Business partner Sam Sciacca sues Tzvetkoff for $100 million
JULY 2009: Online poker house Kolyma sues for $52 million
JULY 2009: Sells partnership in Zuri nightclub
AUGUST 2009: Sells 30m superyacht Maximus
NOVEMBER 2009: Hedges Ave mansion sold for $17 million
JANUARY 2010: Files for bankruptcy
APRIL 2010: Charged by US authorities with money laundering. Faces 75 years in jail
Mansion photograph: Richard Gosling, Sources: Business Insider, Australia’s Courier Mail
