An Australian man who operated a payment processing service has been indicted on charges his company laundered about $500 million in online gambling proceeds.
In a four-count indictment unsealed in New York on Friday, Daniel Tzvetkoff, an Australian national, has been charged with gambling conspiracy, bank fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and one count of money laundering.
Tzvetkoff, 27 years old, was arrested in Las Vegas and remained in custody late Friday.
"At this stage of the game, it's difficult to know exactly what type of evidence is out there. The allegations are certainly fantastic," said Mace Yampolsky, a lawyer for Tzvetkoff. "They are only allegations. I can't comment any further on the veracity of them."
Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office alleged Tzvetkoff's company, Intabill Inc., assisted online gambling companies in processing hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions with U.S. gamblers between February 2008 and March 2009.
During that time period, his company processed more than $543 million of transactions in the U.S.--the bulk of which were for Internet gambling businesses, prosecutors said.
The transactions were allegedly disguised so they would appear to be unrelated to gambling, prosecutors said. They were disguised to appear as repayments of short-term loans, transfer of funds to prepaid debit cards and e-commerce purchases, prosecutors said.
Tzvetkoff ceased processing online gambling transactions in March 2009, after he was accused by several Internet gambling Web sites of stealing about $100 million in gambling pay-ins from U.S. bank accounts, prosecutors said.
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