Dennis Bliede confesses millions of fraud

The professional poker player Dennis Blied is guilty of misappropriating $ 22 million from his former employer Stylehaul. This is accompanied by heavy identity theft and transfer fraud. This was possible because Blieden worked as a Vice President of Accounting and Finance at Stylehaul. It could be up to 22 years in prison.

Charges already in July

The US Justice Ministry (DOJ) already charged Dennis Blieden on July 10th. Even then it stood Improvement of $ 22 million in the room. According to the court documents, he was charged in 11 cases of transfer fraud, in a case of serious identity theft and in two cases of forfeiture. There were 200 years in the room for this.

Dennis Blieden owed in a case of transfer fraud and in the case of serious identity theft. Due to the confession, the maximum detention period is significantly lowerbut could still be 22 years. The 30-year-old has to go to prison for a long time.

The indictment occurred because in one Internal investigation at Stylehaul in March 2018 Irregularities were discovered in the bookkeeping. Millines were missing in the corporate books. This evidence was used to support the indictment by the US Justice Ministry.

Already at the beginning Dennis Blieden explained to the internal investigators of Stylehaul that he emblazoned $ 15 million in 2017. In the internal memo, that of the US website for news and opinions „The Daily Beast“ has been played, it says:

“Klein started to thousands. It started with monthly transactions and sometimes became weekly. ”

Tried to blur his traces

During his time at Stylehaul, Dennis had blieden access to the company’s bank accounts. He transferred the company money to his accounts and then used it for a variety of personal expenses. To blur his traces, he made fake entries in the business books of Stylehaul. These entries said that the transactions are funds that the company owed its customers.

According to the transfers, Dennis created falsified writing for Bank transfers in which he pretended to be a Western Union -a American provider of global bank transfers. So he was able to give the impression that the funds had been paid to the customers of Stylehaul.

According to the US Ministry of Justice, Dennis has blied probably spent several million out for poker. From the transfers and checks he has issued, it shows that more than $ 1.2 million have ended up in other poker professionals. He is said to have lost large sums not only at live games, even with online poker, millions probably flowed into other pockets.

Furthermore are Almost 8.5 million flowed into the investment of cryptocurrencies. Even the rent for a condominium in Mexico was paid for from the misappropriated company money. He fell one of the signatures of the company board on the rental agreement and then transferred $ 230,000 of the company capital. As a reason, he stated that the Mexican property was rented for the employees and customers of Stylehaul. The fact that these practices were uncovered so late had consequences for both Stylehaul and the RTL Group.

Stylehaul did not survive the scandal, RTL had to bleed

Stylehaul was founded in 2011 and, as a “fashion network”, took care of the interests of YouTubern and influencers. 2014 the RTL group paid $ 127 millionto obtain more than 93 percent of the shares in Stylhaul and thus the decision -making power through the company. The then RTL boss Anke Schäferkordt promised this “A big strategic step to develop the RTL Group into a global power house in the rapidly growing market for online videos.”

However, the undertaking developed into a million flop, which is primarily due to Dennis Blieden. Stylehaul is now closed, of which not only the cooperating influencers and YouTuber, but also the more than 70 employees in the USA and Europe are affected. In addition, the separation from RTL boss Bert has a relationship. Bertelsmann – the group to which the RTL Group belongs – has refused to support Bert because he pursued the clarification of the case around the misappropriated funds. Ultimately is Have resigned from personal considerationswithout the specific reasons for this.

WPT profit thanks to the stolen money?

The criminal machinations of Dennis Blieden therefore have far -reaching effects, which is no wonder due to the huge sum. the Imprinting should be over four years took place between 2015 and 2019 before the discrepancies were noticed. Until then, he had enough time to take part in several poker tournaments. Shortly before the fraud became known, he even bought for two events with Buy-ins with $ 52,000 or $ 103,000.

Even the buy-in for WPT L.A. Poker Classic 2018, which was in connection with a moderate $ 10,000, is said to come from the misappropriated funds. In the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles, Dennis Blieden prevailed in a field of 493 players. At the end he won his first WPT title And a million US dollars.

In addition, he got a place in the Super High Roller Bowl. Of course, this success now appears in a completely different light. It is not clear whether he loses his title from the WPT. What the judgment will look like will be shown next year. For the March 20, 2020 is the verdict scheduled.