Australian Processor To Testify In Black Friday Trial

An Australian former e-payment processor will be testifying in the New York trial of two men that were charged with crimes relating to the events of Black Friday.

The man, Daniel Tzvetkoff will be testifying against his former business partner Chad Elie and Utah banker John Campos in the federal trial. The two men face several charges, including money laundering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Tzvetkoff is a 29 year old entrepreneur that faced up to 75 years in a US prison after his 2009 arrest for processing illegal online gambling transactions, money laundering, and bank fraud. His Queensland based company allegedly helped process more than $1 billion in illicit transactions between gamblers and online poker companies.

He spent a few months in custody but was released in June of 2010 after he struck deals that have been sealed by US courts. His whereabouts have been unknown, despite speculation by various individuals.

After striking the deal, Tzvetkoff became a key informant and witness for the US government in its prosecution of some of the largest online poker firms including Cereus Network, Full Tilt Poker, and Pokerstars. He has reportedly handed over more than 90,000 documents to US officials, including many confidential emails.

During the past week, lawyers for Chad Elie complained that prosecutors recently dumped "a mountain of documents" on them. A filing by Elie's lawyers Barry Berke and Dani James stated:

"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, and that the Tzvetkoff emails that were included in prior productions were therefore ones that Mr Tzvetkoff had cherry-picked for the government."

"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 and which we were able to access for the first time only yesterday."

It is widely believed that Tzvetkoff's cooperation with US law enforcement brought about the events of Black Friday, wherein authorities shut down Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and Absolute Poker and charged various individuals with crimes including money laundering and bank fraud.