Aust supergrass Tzetkoff avoids jail term

A New York judge has agreed not to send Queenslander Daniel Tzvetkoff back to jail, but he will have to forfeit $US13 million.

Australian computer whiz Daniel Tzvetkoff, who helped shut down the multi-billion dollar US online gambling industry when he became a prosecution witness, has avoided a jail sentence.

Tzvetkoff, 31, was sentenced in a New York court on Wednesday to time already served.

He was also ordered to forfeit $US13 million ($A14 million), but is free to return to Australia as there will be no supervised release.

Tzvetkoff was originally facing a 75-year term in the US for bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business when arrested in a Las Vegas casino in 2010, but his fortune changed when he became an informant for US prosecutors.

A probation report recommended Tzvetkoff serve between six and 12 months jail.

US District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan agreed with Tzvetkoff's lawyer, Robert Goldstein, the Australian should only be sentenced to the four months in prison in Las Vegas and Brooklyn he already endured after his arrest.

Tzvetkoff's Queensland online processing company, Intabill, illegally processed more than $US1 billion in US transactions for online gambling websites PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker, according to court documents.

He was able to quickly amass an estimated personal fortune of $A82 million.

Tzvetkoff owned a $US27 million mansion on Queensland's Gold Coast, exotic sports cars and his own V8 Supercar racing team.

Less than a year after Tzvetkoff agreed to work with prosecutors, the US authorities shut down the US operations of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker.

Tzvetkoff will be free to return to Australia where he has a job as chief technical officer at "a respectable organisation".


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Source: AAP



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