Max Ashkar - scamming big time

[pavoe]

I want to present you a lovely fella from germany, Mr. Max Ashkar:



He is allegedly responsible for one of the biggest player to player scams in the history of online poker.

The first reports came in october 2011 and threads popped up on pokerstrategy.com and 2+2.

As it is rumored he scammed several players with the help of a trojan which he installed manually on the victims computers for over 7 figures.

His line was to befriend many succesful poker players mainly at the european tournament circuit. His FB friendlist included almost everybody. During the events he got access to the victims computers and allegedly installed a virus with a usb stick. He also visited some poker houses to pull his scam there. He was very well known in the poker circles and back in the days he was beating the games in a fair manner until the games caught up on him and he went broke. Thats when he started his shady comeback.

In the threads many famous players piped up such as Timex McDonald and Andrew Lichtenberger who got to know him.

One of the bigger casualties was Niki Jedlicka (KaiBuxxe/RealAndyBeal) who lost 350K to the scammer. The most victims are from England (many German pokerpros live there), Austria, Switzerland and Germany.

One player who normally played the 2K hunsngs got beaten by the scammer and then hunted down by him till his BR was to small to play the 100$ husngs. The scammer used differnt accounts to do that.

At the Poker-EM (EuroCup) in Baden some of the victims confronted Max with the allegations and interrogated him until he confessed and they recorded it on a mobile. After it they brought him to the police but Max revoked his testimony at the police and claimed (as it is reported rightfully) that he was forced to the confession.

The investigation is ongoing. Some say that the victims have no real hopes in the official investigations and are searching for evidences on their own and want to bring it to court in England.

The mainstream media reported about the scam in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

At the moment Max is on the run and allegedly he hides in Qatar.

[TheTemplar]

Good post! This is exactly what this forum is for. Now question for you are I haven't followed the story.

How was he giving people the trojan? Having them click on a link? Do these players, not have simple virus protection? Gimme the details if you have them.

[pavoe]

He got access to their laptops (hotelrooms while on tournaments or visits to their homes) and installed the trojan with a usb stick.

He was considered as a friend by the victims.

[TheTemplar]

He got access to their laptops (hotelrooms while on tournaments or visits to their homes) and installed the trojan with a usb stick.

He was considered as a friend by the victims.

Ah got cha. So about a minute or two with alone with a computer was all he needed.

[Dan Druff]

Thanks for bringing this story here. Very interesting.

Can you post some links to the threads involving this matter?

I am surprised that the guys who cornered him and taped a confession didn't just beat the crap out of him, or at the very least strongarm whatever money he had on him.

Is it known what trojan he was using? Installing one isn't as simple as just putting a USB stick on a computer. At the very least, you need to install the trojan from the USB stick in the same manner you would install a program you just downloaded from the web. This doesn't take long, but does require at least a minute or two alone with the computer.

The thing I don't understand is the software he was using. There are many clandestine keylogging programs you can install (to steal passwords), but programs that let you see the other person's computer screen remotely (which it sounds like he used) are not as trivial. Does anyone know specifically what program was being used for this? The ones I know of don't "hide" themselves (such as Teamviewer), though it's not unreasonable to believe there are malicious programs that were written to cover their existence on the host computer.

If he is really hiding in Qatar and stays away from live poker events, he will have gotten away with this.

[pavoe]

Thanks for bringing this story here. Very interesting.

Can you post some links to the threads involving this matter?

I am surprised that the guys who cornered him and taped a confession didn't just beat the crap out of him, or at the very least strongarm whatever money he had on him.

Is it known what trojan he was using? Installing one isn't as simple as just putting a USB stick on a computer. At the very least, you need to install the trojan from the USB stick in the same manner you would install a program you just downloaded from the web. This doesn't take long, but does require at least a minute or two alone with the computer.

The thing I don't understand is the software he was using. There are many clandestine keylogging programs you can install (to steal passwords), but programs that let you see the other person's computer screen remotely (which it sounds like he used) are not as trivial. Does anyone know specifically what program was being used for this? The ones I know of don't "hide" themselves (such as Teamviewer), though it's not unreasonable to believe there are malicious programs that were written to cover their existence on the host computer.

If he is really hiding in Qatar and stays away from live poker events, he will have gotten away with this.

As it is reported Max offered to transfer money he had in one Pokeraccount and in some e-wallets (neteller, moneybookers) to the guys who confronted him (irrc N. Jedlicka was amongst them) to let him go but it wouldn't have covered nearly as much as was stolen. They refused it.

Regarding to beat him up. Sure it is an option, but not if you want to bring him to court imo.
Maybe it was already too much. The police investigated against the victims of the scam because of coercion and deprivation of freedom (not sure if that is the right term). No idea what came out of it.

No idea which kind of programm was used, I am a tech-noob. There is some info in the 2+2 thread irrc, didn't follow that because I understand nothing of it. In the German pokerstartegy thread is a duscussion about that, but it's chinese to me.

2+2 link:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...rojan-1120121/

Maybe I add some translated stuff from the German outlets later but I think much of it is coverd and translated in the 2+2 thread.

[Ryback_feed_me_more]

Thanks for bringing this story here. Very interesting.

Can you post some links to the threads involving this matter?

I am surprised that the guys who cornered him and taped a confession didn't just beat the crap out of him, or at the very least strongarm whatever money he had on him.

Is it known what trojan he was using? Installing one isn't as simple as just putting a USB stick on a computer. At the very least, you need to install the trojan from the USB stick in the same manner you would install a program you just downloaded from the web. This doesn't take long, but does require at least a minute or two alone with the computer.

The thing I don't understand is the software he was using. There are many clandestine keylogging programs you can install (to steal passwords), but programs that let you see the other person's computer screen remotely (which it sounds like he used) are not as trivial. Does anyone know specifically what program was being used for this? The ones I know of don't "hide" themselves (such as Teamviewer), though it's not unreasonable to believe there are malicious programs that were written to cover their existence on the host computer.

If he is really hiding in Qatar and stays away from live poker events, he will have gotten away with this.

Looking back 6 yrs ago now Druff lets be honest.. A lot of poker pros are a bunch of pussies.. The days of guys like Doyle who would've pulled a gun and put it to a cheating POS skull are long over.. Nowadays without fail poker players are risk adverse even to the point of letting guys like Mike Dentale be assholes with impunity.. Funny thing is pretty sure if Dentale had been a victim he would've gotten on a plane hunted this POS down and beat him senseless and who knows maybe one of his mafia buddies would've fitted him with a pair of concrete shoes.. (No I have no obvious proof Dentale has mobs ties but hes Italian working in a labor intensive job sector and from NJ??? yeah that doesn't scream mafia at all)