Isai Scheinberg, the notoriously famous founder of renowned online poker app PokerStars, has surrendered himself to the U.S authorities after being accused and charged for planning bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling by the United States federal government. Scheinberg has to plead not guilty and was released on a bail of $1 million. He has surrendered his passports as well.
According to the reports, Scheinberg was taken into custody by the officials while he was traveling from Switzerland to New York on January 17, 2020. Reportedly, an extradition order was passed for Scheinberg a few months back when he moved to Switzerland. PokerStars was established in 2001 by Scheinberg and in no time, the platform became quite popular amongst the people who loved the game and didn’t hesitate to invest their funds while playing.
In 2019, the US Government had made an extradition request to Switzerland, where Scheinberg had been on a trip, and he has surrendered his passport and been released with a bail figure of $1m.
The main issues date back to 2006, when the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act was implemented, placing a federal ban on online gambling.
PokerStars was one of the few operators to remain in the market after the law came into effect, which led to ‘Black Friday’ in 2011.
On 15 April 2011, the US Department of Justice unsealed indictments against executives of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker, including Isai but not Mark Scheinberg.
In 2014, the leader sold the firm to a group chaired by David Baazov for $4.9 billion. Federal prosecutor, Olga Zverovich stated that Scheinberg is in talks with the government for quite some time now.
