Home / Poker News October 2013 / Another Poker Player in Hot Water – Billy Jordanou’s Legal Problems
Another Poker Player in Hot Water – Billy Jordanou’s Legal Problems
Posted by: Randy Williams - Sun, 2013-10-27 08:47
Poker players are apparently quite adept at getting themselves involved in all sorts of illegal money-making scams. Following in Masa Kagawa’s footsteps, Australian poker pro Billy Jordanou is now in hot legal waters, involved in an alleged Ponzi scheme and as such the subject of a two-year criminal investigation.
Jordanou’s approach to making money was a bit different from Kagawa’s though: he teamed up with an accountant, Robert Zaia, and the two of them gained access to massive loans from the Commonwealth Bank, from some of Zaia’s wealthy clients, through the use of fraudulent documents. The damage caused by the two “business partners” amounted to about $70 million.
According to some reports, Jordanou and Zaia have been involved in several companies together and they have made large money transfers to various credit cards, family trust funds and bank accounts which have later been tracked to them. They couldn’t really keep their ill-gotten riches under wraps either: they have reportedly embarked on suspicious spending sprees, purchasing yachts, luxury cars, jet skis, motorbikes and hot rods. In hindsight, it was indeed quite inevitable for them to arouse the authorities’ suspicions they way they operated.
Proof against the two smooth operators was obtained in March 2012, when law enforcement agencies raided Zaia’s offices uncovering a number of fraudulent documents used in the scheme.
While he hasn’t exactly made a name for himself on the global live poker scene, Jordanou has been a regular in various live
poker tournaments held in the Asia-Pacific region. The Crown Casino in Melbourne counts him among its regulars. He has played in several high-profile tournaments there like the AU$100k Challenge and the AU$250k Challenge.
Jordanou is also a regular in some of the biggest cash games in the world hosted in Macau.
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