Home / Poker News March 2012 / Daniel Tzvetkoff set to Appear as Witness
Daniel Tzvetkoff set to Appear as Witness
Posted by: Jo Martin - Wed, 2012-03-21 16:23
The majority of online poker players learned about Daniel Tzvetkoff’s existence under rather dire auspices about a year ago. Tzvetkoff, the Australian online payment processor who had allegedly processed around $1 billion in illegal money transfers to and from online poker sites, was instrumental in the Black Friday indictments. Prosecutors were able to corner online poker sites PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and the two Cereus network members Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet thanks to the information provided by Tzvetkoff.
Tzvetkoff had apparently been apprehended by US authorities, and facing a 75 year jail sentence, he was pressured into cooperating and providing vital information. Soon after having turned state’s witness, he went into hiding, but he will surface this April 9 as the star witness in the John Campos and Chad Elie trial.
Campos and Elie are also accused of having aided the illegal transfer of
online poker money. As the vice chairman of a Utah bank, Campos was indeed in a perfect position to facilitate such transfers. He is charged with 6 offenses, and he’s looking at a maximum of 35 years in jail.
Elie is in much hotter water. As a payment processor who contributed to the transfer of the said funds directly, he is accused of money laundering, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and the violation of the infamous 2006 UIGEA. Elie is looking at 85 years in jail.
Prosecutors have plenty of proof against the two: Tzvetkoff has apparently supplied them with a genuine mountain of documents, including records of direct communications between him and Elie. The legal team representing Elie has filed a complaint about not being given enough time to prepare after the mountain of about 90,000 files got dropped on them a few weeks before the trial.
The government had apparently only provided the defense with a limited selection of the emails exchanged between Tzvetkoff and Elie before the lawyers expressly requested the material to be put at their disposal.
