Swedish Poker Players Fall Prey To Blackmailer

This week, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported that several of the country’s top poker pros were threatened into handing over money to an unnamed 23 year-old assailant with a gun. The suspect has now been taken into custody on robbery and extortion charges, and if the apparent mountain of evidence stacked against him holds up, could face several years behind bars.
Allegedly, the incidences took place between June and December 2011 when the 23 year-old man threatened at least 7 or 8 poker players into handing over  several hundred thousand each. One of his victims claims the assailant even put a gun to his head at his own home, and threatened that if he went to the police or didn’t give him the money; “Now I know where you live..things would go bad.” The victim then claims to have later handed him over 224,000 crowns (€27,000) at the Casino Cosmopol in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The list of charges leveled by the prosecutoragainst the 23 year-old include four counts of blackmail, one of robbery and another of aggravated robbery or aggravated extortion.
However, the plot has thickened after the suspect, who is a poker player himself, claims he himself had been  cheated by the other players. Apparently, the suspect said he had a joint account at PokerStars with one of the men, and that they had won a large sum together. The suspect claims his partner then allowed other players to access and clear out the account.
In one online news outlet, the alleged suspect has even been named and a photo provided, but at his remand hearing at the Gothenburg District Court he called the allegations “pure bullshit.” Meanwhile, Tthe investigation is continuing.