Daniel Tzvetkoff

Daniel Kim Tzvetkoff (born October 1983 in Ipswich, Queensland) is the founder of Intabill.

Early life

He began his own web design business at the age of 13. At 16, he was animating cartoons for The New York Times website. He left school in 2000 having developed software for processing online payments securely just as a worldwide boom in Internet shopping was occurring globally.

Internet tycoon

In 2004 Tzvetkoff teamed up with lawyer Sam Sciacca, a cousin of former federal Labor MP Con Sciacca,[1] to run Intabill. Sciacca would handle the business side while Tzvetkoff focused on the software and product development. Intabill quickly became one of the world's largest online billing companies.

He appeared on the 2008 edition of the BRW Young Rich List. His business had grown "10 to 20 per cent" every month since its inception. Five thousand clients in 70 countries - many of them online gambling operators - were using the company's technology to take payments from customers.

With the large amount of cash flow from processing Sciacca & Tzvetkoff began to make a number of large investments. In early 2008 Tzvetkoff & Sciacca formed Hugo Services and Trendsact in partnership with Curtis Pope (formerly Selling Source) and John Scott Clark (Impact Payments). The payday lender was named after Tzvetkoff’s son (Hugo). Hugo Services was launched with over $27m USD in capital loaned from BT Projects the parent company of Intabill. Hugo (the company) was a runaway success, more than doubling in value over its initial nine months of operation to over $60 million.

Hugo Services was formed Quid pro quo in exchange for Pope and Clark forming upstream processing relationships for Intabill. They would process the Poker transactions in exchange Intabill would invest in the payday lending partnership. Hugo Services was set up in Las Vegas and employed over 150 staff.

With the huge success of both Intabill and the payday lending business Tzvetkoff & Sciacca began to invest in numerous properties and businesses. Both businesses continued to expand until late 2008.

Intabill's Demise

In late 2008 Intabill began to have cash flow issues with a number of upstream processors having large sums of funds frozen by the DOJ/FBI efforts to curb illegal online Poker. In total Intabill had over $20 million frozen or forfeited due to processing for online Poker operators. Around the same time processing volumes began to decline and due to both of these issues Intabill was left owing more to its clients than it had cash flow.

By early 2009 Tzvetkoff and Sciacca began to take drastic measures and made the decision to draw down profits from the Pay Day lending business to repay Intabill's clients. A repayment agreement was reached with key clients for a flat sum per week until the amount owing was paid in full. Intabill, Tzvetkoff and Sciacca gave personal guarantees ensuring payment in full. Everything was going to plan until Intabill stopped receiving payments from the Payday lending entity.

Unbeknown to Tzvetkoff and Sciacca, Pope had transferred the assets of the Payday lending business to entities that he and Clark controlled. In essence blocking any access to the funds required to pay back Intabill's clients.

Sciacca, Tzvetkoff and Intabill Executives urgently flew to Las Vegas to address the issue. On arrival they were greeted by security and locked out of their own offices. Pope and Clark had secretly taken control of the business.

Sciacca and Tzvetkoff low on funds, unable to repay their clients or take legal action quickly enough against Pope & Clarke are forced to place Bt Projects into receivership.

Legal troubles

In 2009 US poker sites Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars complained Intabill owed them money. Full Tilt Poker sued Intabill claiming it had breached its pay down agreement and owed tens of millions of dollars. In late 2008 Sciacca and Tzvetkoff had hired a CFO who was tasked with bringing Intabills books up to date. Until early 2009 Sciacca & Tzvetkoff were unaware of the true financial position of the company. Operating costs had been far more than either had believed, as were the profits lower.

In July 2009, Intabill collapsed. Sciacca sued Tzvetkoff for $100 million and claimed he'd mismanaged the company accounts and led Sciacca to believe the profits were higher than they in fact were.

In mid-2009 Curtis Pope & John Scott Clark were arrested and later reported Tzvetkoff as being involved to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for money laundering in connection with helping Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and Absolute Poker process funds for United States players. Pope was sentenced to 20 Months in Prison and was ordered to forfeit the funds he had siphoned from the Payday lending business.

When Tzvetkoff arrived in Las Vegas for an internet billings conference in April 2010, he was arrested.

After a few months in United States custody, and facing a possible 75-year sentence for alleged UIGEA violations, he opted to become a government informant.[1] His insider knowledge has allowed prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to file United States v. Scheinberg et al..

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Marriner, Cosima (2011-04-25). "How a Vegas boy bet the house and lost it all". Sydney Morning Herald.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/25/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.