I got the whole story straight from the victim's girlfriend, who happened to be assigned to my WSOP $3000 Limit event table.
The victim was Niklas Heinecker, as correctly guessed by Sandwich. (How did you know that, BTW?)
Here is a picture of him.
His girlfriend is Maxi Mueller, who is a pretty good limit hold 'em player from Germany. Both Maxi and Niklas were Full Tilt red pros, though obviously neither had anything to do with the problems there.
Here is a picture of Maxi:
This was my first time playing with Maxi. She seemed nice, and was pretty in that wholesome, girl-next-door sort of way.
For several hours, I had no idea that Maxi was the girlfriend of the guy who had money stolen from his Rio cash table. The subject came up because Ray Henson was at the table, as well. Recall that Ray Henson was the guy who initially reported this to the internet (via Twitter), and apparently he is somewhat friendly with Maxi. It was a coincidence that Henson (the guy who sort-of witnessed it and reported it to the net), Maxi (the girlfriend of the victim), and myself were all at the same starting table.
Ray Henson asked for clarification of a few details he didn't know. I then asked a few questions of Maxi, which I could tell made her a little bit uncomfortable. She didn't know me, and we had barely spoken at the table, so here was this stranger suddenly asking a bunch of questions about a crime that had occurred against her boyfriend. I tried to put her at ease by saying, "I'm totally on your side here... I think it's outrageous that the Rio won't make good on this", and she opened up and gave all the details.
Here they are:
- A guy walked up to a Rio cash game table, and approached Heinecker's seat, which was empty while Heinecker was away from the table. He confidently took all of Heinecker's money.
- The theft was $22k, not $50k as originally reported. Some was cash, and some was chips.
- The dealer wasn't quite as incompetent as first thought, as he had just rotated into the game, and didn't know who was sitting in that seat. It is not clear whether the thief simply took advantage of this and pretended they were HIS chips, or if he really did mumble something about "cashing out his friend". This occurred shortly after the new dealer took his place, which I'm sure wasn't a coincidence.
- The thief was pacing back and forth at a distance prior to committing his crime, likely waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
- The thief did not cash out. He briskly walked out after taking the money.
- The dealer did call security when the guy appeared to be walking away too quickly. It is not clear if the dealer himself realized something was wrong, or if the players alerted him to it. Security attempted to chase down the thief, but he disappeared into the heavy Rio hallway crowd and could not be located. It is not clear if this was pulled during a break of an event, but the "disappearing into the crowd" would seem to imply that this is what happened, as the hallway is not crowded when nobody is on break.
- As of now, the Rio refuses to refund the money. They claim that it is the player's responsibility to protect their own funds. This does not make sense, as you are not allowed to take your money off the table unless you are leaving the game for good, so you are FORCED to leave your funds on the table if you go to the bathroom in the middle of a cash session. Niklas has vigorously argued his case, but has been turned down for any sort of refund. He has attemped to reach the Rio casino manager, but can't reach him, and is not getting a call back.
- Niklas filed a police report. That has gone nowhere, at least as of now. He has asked to see the pertinent security footage, but the Rio will not show him. The Rio (and most other casinos) has a policy not to show their security footage unless law enforcement requests it. It is unclear whether law enforcement has requested it, and it is unclear if they would show it to Niklas if they received the footage from the Rio.
- I suggested that they file a lawsuit, but at the same time acknowledged that, being German citizens only here for a few weeks, this would be very difficult. Maxi agreed that they would consider a lawsuit if they were here for a longer period of time, but that it's not practical given that they will return to Germany very soon.
- I did not ask Maxi to come on radio, as she didn't seem like the type who would want to do that. I might pitch it to her boyfriend if I can find him on Twitter or Facebook.