If you’re sitting there scratching your head like we were about how the FBI could have built its case strongly enough to get the DOJ to issue those warrants that forced the shutdown of three of the biggest poker sites on the Internet, here’s how: an insider ratted them out. That is, an individual engaging in illegal online gambling entrepreneurial activity himself cut a deal with US authorities to save his own rear from the frying pan by helping to bring down bigger fish than he.
The “he” in question is one Daniel Tzvetkoff, and the more you find out about this guy, the less you like him. He and a partner created Instabill which, as you might now, is one of the payment processors that helps arrange financial transactions between the online gambling sites and its players, including U.S. players – a big no-no according to Uncle Sam.
Apparently (or “allegedly” as we’re supposed to say) Tzvetkoff laundered some $540 million through Instabill: money that was supposed to go to Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars and Absolute Poker but ended up going into his pocket. Living high on the hog on his clients’ money, it only makes sense they went ahead and sued him.
Arrested in New York in 2008 while attending a conference, Tzvetkoff began worming his way out of his legal hole then by, it seems, turning the tables on those very sites, in essence biting the hand that had stopped feeding him once they realized he’d already bitten a chunk out of them before.
The upshot (call it payback, call it irony) is that Tzvetkoff still faces charges with a penalty of up to 75 years in prison in his own native Australia if they can just get our hands off him and theirs on him.