Home / Poker News May 2011 / Tzvetkoff in Hot Water Again
Tzvetkoff in Hot Water Again
Posted by: James Carter. - Mon, 2011-05-30 13:10
Daniel Tzvetkoff may have thought he bought his way out of the squeezer by ratting out online poker operators Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and the Cereus network members prior to the Black Friday indictments. Boy, was he wrong. While good-old Uncle Sam let him off the hook in exchange for the information he provided, the Aussie authorities have other things in mind for him. The Australian Security and Investments Commission has recently commenced a fraud investigation against him.
Daniel Tzvetkoff, the Las Vegas golden boy, was born in the UK to Bulgarian parents. He used his in-depth knowledge about the workings of the international online financial scene to create a company named Intabill, which then helped online poker companies make transfers to and from US customers, in direct violation of the provisions of the 2006 UIGEA.
Tzvetkoff’s company made handsome profits, raking in around $100k/day at one point. The generous earnings prompted Tzvetkoff to start living a kind of life that was beyond even his outlandishly generous means. The overspending caused him to raid the company piggybank, and eventually the funds belonging to the online poker companies. Several companies representing
Full Tilt Poker,
PokerStars and the Cereus network sued him for varying amounts of money he had supposedly embezzled through his Intabill. The company collapsed in 2009 and partner Salvatore Sciacca sued Tzvetkoff too, after realizing just how big a legal hole he had dug for himself and for the company.
After things got too hot for him in Australia, Tzvetkoff moved to the US, where he was arrested in Las Vegas, while taking part in a conference about internet billing.
Facing 75 years in jail, Tzvetkoff readily provided FBI investigators with information they needed to indict the 11 poker executives listed in the Black Friday documents.
If Australia’s Federal Police presses charges against him, Tzvetkoff will face similarly dire legal prospects down under, should he ever leave his New York safe house to visit.
