Excessive-stakes Hollywood Hills poker video games tied to blackmail, homicide, feds say

An alleged Israeli mobster believed to be residing in Mexico since being deported from the U.S. in 2011 is going through federal extortion prices in reference to a community of personal high-stakes poker video games in Los Angeles, in keeping with a number of media studies.  

In an affidavit filed in federal courtroom final week, Assaf “Ace” Waknine is accused of referencing the homicide of Emil Lahaziel at a personal Hollywood Hills poker sport in 2023 throughout an alleged try to blackmail the host of one other weekly sport the place the buy-in started at $20,000, and gamers have been recognized to win or lose hundreds of thousands in a single evening, the Los Angeles Times reported.  

The Israeli nationwide was reportedly demanding $5,000 a sport in “protection” charges. 

“I guess you really want to end up like your other b**** a** poker buddy,” the affidavit claims Waknine mentioned in a textual content message after the host refused to pay.  

“I don’t know who you are and I’m in a meeting,” the sufferer of the alleged extortion scheme mentioned earlier than hanging up on Waknine. 

“F*** your meeting,” Waknine reportedly texted again. 

Homeland Security Investigations particular agent Matthew Hernandez, who filed the affidavit, wrote that Waknine was tied to a “cottage industry” of personal high-dollar poker video games that gained momentum throughout COVID-19 and included gamers starting from “A-list celebrities to wealthy entrepreneurs to professional and amateur poker players.”  

The unidentified sufferer Waknine tried to blackmail, in keeping with the feds, hosted a sport that included cocktail waitresses who have been typically fashions or influencers on social media, bartenders, cooks, valets, DJs and personal safety guards, The Times reported. 

The host reportedly made his cash by taxing 50% of the employees’s suggestions and will make in extra of $100,000 an evening, the affidavit acknowledged.  

But violence began turning into an issue in May 2023 when a sequence of arsons occurred outdoors a number of the big-money card video games.  

According to the HSI agent, the Waknine brothers, who both have several felony convictions, were known to develop “connections with individuals affiliated with the Mexican Mafia in Southern California, as well as connections with historically Black gangs including the Crips, whom they use as enforcers and collectors for their extortion schemes,” the outlet Poker News reported.  

Hai Waknine has not been charged in the newest extortion case towards his brother, who, as of now, just isn’t in custody.  

According to Special Agent Hernandez, the sufferer by no means paid Waknine any cash, however cancelled the scheduled card sport, telling his safety guard, “I just don’t want to deal with that s***.”