Daniel Tzvetkoff allegedly shifted millions in online gaming rort via phony websites
Tzvetkoff's company Intabill allegedly processed more than $543 million in transactions between US gamblers and internet gambling websites. Picture: Annette Dew
FALLEN Brisbane IT entrepreneur Daniel Tzvetkoff was allegedly part of an international online gaming rort which used phony websites selling everything from golf clubs, flowers, pets, jewellery and bicycles to launder billions of dollars in illegal earnings.
The revelations were revealed in a 52-page US indictment obtained by
The Courier-Mail and filed in the Southern District Court of New York by American authorities against 11 online gaming kings accused of fraud and money laundering.
The charges, against some of the most powerful online gaming chiefs in the world, came as a result of the Ipswich-born Tzvetkoff turning supergrass against his former peers to ensure his own release from a 75-year sentence in a US jail.
Included as a defendant is Isai Scheinberg, the founder of the largest online gaming site in the world, Poker Stars, a man estimated to be worth more than $US1 billion.
The indictment alleges the giant US poker houses shortcircuited Visa and Mastercard regulations and tricked US banks into authorising their internet gambling transactions.
"In or about 2008 the defendants created dozens of phony e-commerce websites purporting to sell everything from clothing to jewellery to golf clubs to bicycles which, in reality, would be used to disguise gambling transactions," the US indictment says.
Several of the online poker chiefs allegedly created a bogus "Green2YourGreen" business, claiming to be an environmentally friendly household products concern, to be used to disguise payments from US gamblers destined for US major online poker companies.
Tzvetkoff is named as one of the major offshore principals who sought to deceive authorities and circumvent strict money laundering regulations.
A glimpse into the sheer size of Tzvetkoff's fallen empire is given in the court documents, which say his collapsed Intabill online processing company processed more than $US500 million worth of illegal transactions for the world's largest online poker houses in barely two years.
The US indictment shows that Intabill processed at least $543,210,092 of transactions for major online poker companies from mid-2007 to March 2009.
It also lists a string of diverse international banks the US authorities claim were used by the online poker operators to hide funds.
The banks range from Antigua, Cyprus, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Panama and Ireland through to Utah, Illinois, Colorado and Florida.
Bookmarks