Tycoon to come out of hiding for US trial

DANIEL Tzvetkoff, dubbed as the Queensland internet whiz who toppled America’s multibillion-dollar online poker industry is set to come out of hiding next month, according to speculation. He is set to give evidence on the April 9 New York trial of his erstwhile Las Vegas-based business partner, Chad Elie, & a Utah banker, John Campos, reports the Australian newspaper The Age.

Back in 2010, he struck a deal with the US government, stating that he could help them pin and prosecute three of the world’s largest online gambling companies: PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. By taking this path, Daniel Tzvetkoff dodged the 75-year sentence he faced. His location at the moment is still yet unknown.

Elie, 31, is charged with nine offences including conspiring to commit bank fraud & money laundering, whilst Campos, a 57-year-old executive at Utah’s SunFirst Bank who allegedly agreed to process gambling transactions, is charged with six offences.

The Age claims that Tzvetkoff, whose Queensland-based company Intabill allegedly processed more than $US1 billion worth of illegal transactions between US gamblers & internet gaming websites based offshore, has handed more than 90,000 documents, including confidential emails, over to US investigators.

This week, Elie’s lawyers complained to the judge handling the case that, on the eve of the trial, prosecutors dumped a “mountain of documents” on them, including Tzvetkoff’s emails.

“For example, although the government had previously produced emails for Daniel Tzvetkoff, one of the government’s main witnesses in this case, the material we recently received revealed that Mr Tzvetkoff had deleted his emails from the Intabill server, which had previously been made available to the defence, & that the Tzvetkoff emails that were included in prior productions were therefore ones that Mr Tzvetkoff had cherry-picked for the government,” Monday’s filing from Elie’s lawyers, Barry Berke & Dani James, stated.

“Only after we pointed this out to the government did we receive a full set of Mr Tzvetkoff’s materials, which included more than 90,000 documents & which we were able to access for the first time only yesterday.”

Tzvetkoff lived the high life in his native Australia before his arrest, with a luxury mansion & a garage filled with expensive sports cars.

This week former FBI agent Harold Copus told The Age: “He’s turned the corner, seen the light & is cooperating,” after reviewing the details of the case.