Danish poker case investigated by foreign authorities

Multi-million-kroner poker case under international question for cheating

Imagine you’re playing online poker – nobody can see your hand, right? Well in the case of one elite Danish poker player, he could see the hands of eight of his Danish peers thanks to his use of spyware, which came in handy when he was playing high-stakes poker with them.

The case came to public attention on 9 December 2014, after the eight players reported their rival to the authorities, claiming they had been cheated out of tens of millions of kroner.

READ MORE: Police abandon nine out of ten burglary cases

Lengthy investigation
And now it has emerged that the Division of Economic Crime in Copenhagen has reached out to authorities in other countries, presumably with a view to assessing the number of overseas players affected by the cheating.

“We have made contact with foreign police authorities and asked them for help in the matter, and we are eagerly awaiting the outcome of the investigation,” Torben Koldborg Frederiksen, a police commissioner with the division, told Metroxpress.

Frederiksen believes it may take some time to move the prosecution forward.

“It is likely it will be a while until we have a real answer from them, and until then, we can not really move forward,” said Frederiksen.

Prime suspect a “friend”
The main suspect in the case is a 32-year-old man, who is as yet unnamed and described as a close friend of the eight poker players.

Copenhagen Police informed Metroxpress it was likely that the main suspect – whose name has not been disclosed – had installed a Trojan horse on the players’ computers.

“By doing this, he has been able to see the other players’ cards when they played poker against each other,” said Frederiksen back in March.

Besides the prime suspect, two more people have also been questioned in relation to the case. Police will not go into the details of who they are or what role they have played, but have informed Metroxpress that the suspects are also Danes.




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