Accusations of online poker fraud speculate Danish police involvement
According to a group of Danish online poker players who frequent the high-stakes cash game tables, a 7-figure case of fraud has been committed. The group notified authorities that they believed a Trojan horse program had been installed on their computers, resulting in several million euros in losses over as many as 9 years. The accusers named at least one online poker player who also patronizes the high-stakes cash games, but authorities have yet to divulge the name of any suspects.
The Economic Crime Department was notified of the potential online poker fraud, and after a thorough investigation, police reports indicate that two individuals have been charged in the case. However, Danish police would not disclose any names. Police Commissioner Torben Koldborg Frederiksen revealed only that one suspect was a 32 year old poker player.
As the investigation proceeded, charges against the suspect were first filed in October. Reports indicate that not all of the online poker players involved in the alleged deceit are of Danish residency, leading to the possibility that more players may be affected by the alleged Trojan horse program than authorities are currently aware of.
In an interview with a Danish news site, one of the victims explained how his suspicions had been aroused. He stated that he returned home one day to find his computer had been restarted. Upon viewing footage from the security cameras within his home, he discovered the surveillance had been switched off for approximately 15 minutes. At that point, he began to suspect someone had broken in and tampered with his computer by installing a Trojan horse program.
A Trojan horse would have allowed its installer to remotely view the computer screen from another location at any given time. As such, it would allow the perpetrator to view the hole cards of the victim(s) during play, making it easy to win countless chips from of them at an online poker room.
To make matters exceptionally worse, speculations are now arising that the Danish police department may have even been involved in the online poker fraud. There is only circumstantial evidence to support that theory at the moment, based on the fact that police sometimes use Trojan horse software to monitor the activity of suspected criminals during an investigation, and a flurry of rumors from the online poker community that point to a particular suspected poker pro.
iGaming.com helped to facilitate those rumors when it published an article on the topic, stating that they knew the identity of the online poker player charged in the case, but would not divulge it before authorities. The article indicated, however, that “The player is one of the most famous Danish high-stake players, having won an EPT as well as played some of the highest stakes online.”
That story, along with the Danish police’s information of the culprit being a ‘32 year old poker player’, led to online poker forums blowing up with accusatory posts aimed at Peter Jepsen. In 2013, Jepsen admitted to letting Robert Flink use his online poker account, which led to him winning $800k off Blom.
That being a case of duplicitous multi-accounting, the only connection really being made by the online poker community at large is that Jepsen is a professional poker player, has an EPT title and is 32 years of age. It’s also been reported that Jepsen once wrote of having a friend in the Danish police’s IT department that would have a hand in investigating suspicious websites; which, in turn, led to the speculations of police involvement.
