Pokerstars founder and director at centre of major financial crime investigation

Island based online gaming company Pokerstars have found themselves at the centre of a major financial crime investigation.

Island based online gaming company Pokerstars have found themselves at the centre of a major financial crime investigation.

The founder and one of its directors, who are both listed as Island residents, make up 2 of 11 people charged in America with bank fraud and money laundering.

Officially Isai Scheinberg and Paul Tate are charged with Conspiracy to Commit Bank and Wire Fraud, a charge that comes with a maximum sentence of 30 years.

The condensed indictment online states that all 11 had formulated a scheme to deceive US banks and financial institutions into processing billions of dollars of payments.

Through disguising money received by gamblers as payments for numerous non-existent online merchants and other non-gambling businesses they were allegedly able to do this.

In total the prosecutors are seeking over $3 billion in penalties.

The PokerStars website is now offline, with an FBI warning message in place of it’s usual home page at pokerstars.com