A 44-year-old man allegedly tried to extort PokerListings for nearly $2 million; the site’s murdered cofounder, Andreas Oscarsson, was to testify against him this week on aggravated racketeering charges. The unidentified man claims he was working for operatives of billionaire Stefan Bengtsson, an early investor in PokerListings and one of the richest men in Sweden — supposedly trying to collect promised monies withheld after passage of the UIGEA.

At least that’s what we can tell from Swedish-to-English Google translations … should be interesting to see what comes out in the extortion and racketeering trial, which may or may not have provided a motive for killing Oscarsson this past summer.

Haley Hintze (former editor of PokerNews) is following the story closely, and she’s dug up the latest from Swedish press (and 2+2). Highlights from her work below, along with a few more clicks worth of info about some of the characters emerging in this tragic tale of a boomtime poker media pioneer who became somebody’s target and a violent casualty after the online affiliate bubble burst.

Plausibly important allegations, defenses, and partially verified connections:

(financial numbers based on current kronor-to-dollar rates of exchange)

• It’s common practice in the Swedish press not to name accused criminals until after a verdict is reached; hence the defendant on trial for allegedly trying to extort Andreas Oscarsson (and others?) is known as just the 44-year-old man.
• The 44-year-old claims he was working on behalf of a company owned by Stefan Bengtsson, trying to collect $2 million Oscarsson and PokerListings may or may not have owed to them.
• Bengtsson invested about $250,000 into PokerListings in 2003. He was set to cash out for more than $7 million in 2006. But then came the UIGEA, and he received only $5 million for his shares.
• Police say the indicted 44-year-old started by contacting Oscarsson’s finance people, demanding the $2 million difference. He once showed up unannounced at a PokerListings financial advisor’s home with his demands.
• He soon, allegedly, began threatening Oscarsson via phone calls and text messages.
• The 44-year-old brought Thomas Möller, former president of the Swedish Hells Angels, to a meeting with PokerListings finance agents .
• Möller was president of the Hells Angels during the Great Nordic Biker War in the mid-’90s — a three-year gang battle across Scandinavia resulting in 11 dead and 96 wounded.
• Möller has not been accused of any crimes in connection with this case.
• As the 44-year-old’s extortion/collection efforts were underway, one of Andreas Oscarsson’s advisors was shot in the leg while getting the newspaper outside his house. Two men were arrested and later sentenced for this shooting.
• Bengtsson denies any involvement, and has renounced all financial claims against Oscarsson and PokerListings.
• Bengstonn was a major investor in the International biz-pol-culture rag, Monocle, which launched in 2007.
• Bengtsson, 37, is the nephew of Stefan Persson, 62.
• Persson is a second-generation Swedish fashion magnate and philanthropist — and the 18th richest person in the world.
• Bengtsson is heir to the H&M fortune; his car collection includes a Koenigsegg, Audi A7 4.2 TDI, BMW Z8, Lamborghini Murcielago, Audi A6 Avant, Lamborghini Gallardo, and a Bentley Continental GT.
• He is not a suspect in this case nor Oscarsson’s murder.
• Another Andreas Oscarsson was shot to death a few months earlier in the same town; Swedish police have deemed it a case of mistaken identity.
• Swedish police say they still have no suspects in the murder of PokerListings’ Andreas Oscarsson.
• 95 percent of violent crimes in Sweden go unsolved.

McDaniel.

Bosch.

James McDaniel gets sentenced today. McDaniel, of course, is the smooth-talking, purple-suit-wearing rogue Dallas underground-poker-room-operator/drug-dealer convicted in June for contributing to the overdose death of SMU coed Meaghan Bosch. Good money says he will go to prison for the rest of his life … as he was already on parole after serving 20 years for the murder of a former Dallas cop before he got into the underground poker scene. Jurors in the Bosch case were not told his past murder conviction, nor were they allowed to consider allegations from up to a dozen young women claiming they were drugged and raped inside his poker room, some of them apparently on video.

UPDATE: McDaniel did indeed get life. He is currently in custody at Seagoville’s federal prison, but will likely be sent to a less comfortable state prison to finish out his old murder sentence before being sent back to Seagoville for his time on Bosch’s death.

Oscarsson.

Meanwhile, Swedish police are still looking for clues around Europe in the murder of PokerListings founder Andreas Oscarsson. They’ve concluded that indeed his killing was carefully planned by a professional hitman — with his family home fully staked out, exits noted, etc. … allowing the killer to break into the house and fire six silenced shots into Oscarsson and then leave without waking his six family members also asleep in the house that night. And while no motive has been disclosed, apparently investigators have unearthed at least a few death threats against him. and possibly have ruled out some Latvians.

Click here and here for Google translations of the latest from Hungarian news reports.

Dean.

Urch.

And Daniel Dean will get a new trial in the death of fellow amateur poker player Mark Urch. The two players were involved in a drunken dispute over hands in an Australian amateur pub tourney, and when they took matters outside, Dean leveled Urch with a single punch to the head, a blow that caused his death a couple days later. Australian courts sentenced Dean to seven years for manslaughter (eligible for release in May 2011). However, an appeals court threw out the conviction last month and ordered a retrial, on the grounds that the judge may have misinformed the jury about provocation and self-defense matters of law.

There’s a Daniel Dean support group on Facebook.

The father of Andreas Oscarsson, the PokerListings cofounder murdered in Sweden two months ago, says his son was the victim of a professional hit. He spoke on Swedish TV (their equivalent of America’s Most Wanted, I believe) in hopes that the public can help police solve this crime.

Apparently there was almost no evidence left behind.

Oscarsson, of course, was one of the biggest success stories of the international online poker boom — not as a player, but in helping bring players to online sites — and he accumulated vast wealth in a relatively short period of time. The semi-retired poker affiliate kingpin was on a brief holiday to his family home in Sweden this past August when an unknown assailant quietly broke into the house. He was shot six times with what investigators believe was a silencer-capped pistol as his wife, parents, and two-year-old son slept.

Hear Oscarsson’s father in his own (chilling) words:

download

You don’t need to speak Swedish to kinda-sorta understand what this is really all about …

Click below for two recent stories (Google translations) about the highest-stakes murder the Swedes have seen in a long while … one police do not seem close to solving.

“Proffs mördade min son”

“Professionals murdered my son ‘

In the evening he comes up on TV3′s program was called – the father of the 36-year-old businessman in the poker industry, who were murdered in the childhood home of Skoftebyns in Trollhättan on tredje August.

“This is a professional job”

The father hopes that television appearance could lead to police find those who murdered his son. For he is convinced that more than one person behind the murder.

- There is no behind, instigator of the murder. I am absolutely convinced, “says the father.
The police have told him that his son was six shots and that the gun had a silencer, and he thinks it is a professional assassin who is behind the murder.

- They have rekat here in advance, the thing I am absolutely convinced.
The father believed that it was his son’s fortune, which made him a target. This or that the assassination will be a revenge for something.

Pokermord tas upp i tv

Poker Murder raised on television

Six weeks after the murder of a 36-year-old man in his parents’ home in Skoftebyns in Trollhättan police are still no clear traces of what police believe may have been a contract killings, carried out by a hired killer. Tonight appears the father was assassinated in TV3′s program was called.

Television program takes up the case while very appreciative memory of the murdered Andreas Oscarsson from Trollhättan in recent days been reading both in several local newspapers and in national press. It describes 36-year-old of his friends from childhood, student and business community as very well-liked and popular, a generous, cheerful and very multifaceted person.

Father’s appearance in Wanted is in the hope that more people should be able to contribute with tips to the police to clear up the murder. The father is involved in a recorded element with distorted voice and no picture. He tells Swedish Radio West that it is prudent.

Because police believe that there is a contract killings, is in the circle of relatives of murdered worried. His two-year son, who was the grandfather of the villa in Skoftebyns in Trollhättan at the murder, is back with her mother in the United States.

Andreas Oscarsson managed by six shots. Murder weapon was probably a gun with a silencer, since neither his dad or neighbors in the densely populated residential area awoke.

He was the first guy I met (at the 2005 WSOP) who taught me that not all affiliate-based “shill sites” were inherently bad. As a co-founder of PokerListings.com, Andreas Oscarsson helped build a company that not only has been extremely profitable by funneling online players to major poker sites, but also has shown a commitment to solid, informative, and entertaining poker news reporting, tournament coverage, and reader service.

http://www.pokerlistings.com/pokerlistings-founder-passes-away-43083

We are very sad and shocked to confirm that Andreas Oscarsson, founder of PokerListings.com, has tragically passed away while visiting his childhood home in Sweden.

At this point, we do not have any details other than he was found dead in his bed on the morning of August 3rd. He had been shot.

Oscarsson cashed out of the full-time poker website biz two years ago — opting instead for more family time after the birth of his son — but remained an emeritus figure on the PL team, serving as an advisor and sometimes more. He was 36.

UPDATE: Apparently police have ruled out suicide. Sweden’s English-speaking newspaper:

Several relatives, including the 2-year-old boy, were in the house where the man was found dead on Tuesday afternoon, Thord Haraldsson, head of the police anti-crime unit in Trollhättan, told news agency TT. None of the man’s family members are suspected of being involved in the murder, however.

The man moved to the United States ten years ago but originally came from Trollhättan and had been on holiday in Sweden when he was shot dead, Aftonbladet reports. He had planned to leave Sweden on Tuesday.

“A forensics investigation has been conducted at the scene and a preliminary investigation has indicated murder or manslaughter,” said Robert Edh, commander of the police communication centre in Gothenburg.

Wow. Sad. Wow. It’s sometimes about way more than just poker.