Just Conjecturin', Volume 14: More Snared Images from Absolute

When last we left the topic of Absolute Poker's 2007 scandal, readers were presented a handful of screen grabs obtained from internal 'ieSnare' glimpses of account activity. The capability to these ieSnares originated on AP's sister site, UltimateBet, and when the two sites were merged the ieSnare software was adapted to detect fraud on both sides of what would become the present-day Cereus.

This time we return to two more of the top-level images of cheating accounts, to hammer home the point that there was a coordinated, perhaps even frantic cover-up of the cheating taking place at AP in the days immediately following the PotRipper tourney in September in 2007. Weeks of denials and cover stories followed, until the company finally conceded to the statistical evidence demonstrated in Michael Josem's won-loss charts and acknowledged the affair. But as to responsibility, disinformation has been disseminated for weeks, months, even years. It's high time it stopped.

Presented next is the account overview for "doubledrag", another acknowledged cheating account. Here's the snared image:


(Larger version of image available at http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/764/doubledragacctinfo.jpg)

Included just in that are: Another warning to general customer-service workers to not touch the account on the orders of management; a couple of irate calls from customers about the doubledrag cheating; and the September 17, 2007 closure of the account itself, by "AJ" -- referring to AJ Green, the member of the inner circle who took the hit when the bus of public opinion had to run over somebody. The cover-up, however, clearly extended across top management. The following image shows that when the doubledrag account was shut down, some $34,000 had been pulled back from the account:


(Larger version of image available at http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8485/doubledragacctbals.jpg)

Remember that the Potripper account was blacklisted at the same time:


(Larger version of image available at http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3180/scottom6.jpg)

And then there was "graycat" (a reference, I've been told, to Phil Tom's cat). First comes the overview, another one that features AP's own customer-service number in the phone field, along with plenty of other phony information:


(Larger version of image available at http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9256/graycat1.jpg)

Here's the account balances overview, showing the final adjusted cash after certain adjustments had been made, leaving a nice round $15,000:


(Larger version of image available at http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3910/graycat3.jpg)

The problem, though, was that graycat was an older and well known account, prompting another probe into the details of graycat's then-recent history. Here's what another glimpse into the graycat transaction file provided:


(Larger version of image available at http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3910/graycat3.jpg)

There was another blacklisting and forced withdrawal on this account, with the funds moved off into the online wallet service ePassporte, to the account "SPTOM", likely short for Scott Philip Tom, his full name. That withdrawal went through on late 9/16 or early 9/17 (the screens likely track different aspects of the transaction) but was tied to the 9/16 blacklisting. Then, later on 9/17, a second withdrawal or series of withdrawals was denied, per AJ Green's (Allan Grimard's) request.

However, it's a secondary look into the transactions file of graycat that offers a clearer glimpse into that last tangle of transactions:


(Larger version of image available at http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7961/graycat4.jpg)

The image indicates that a majority ($150,000) of the money that was in the account was moved off the site, with a smaller amount -- a bit over $30,000 -- remaining when the account was blacklisted. Again, published claims that no money left the site are false and are a further indicator of the larger cover-up.

At some point, $15,000 remained in the account, when the earlier screen was snared. It's important to note that as of 9/17, graycat was one of only several accounts under suspicion, and denials were still the order of the day. It would be several more weeks before even the most generalized admissions of insider cheating were acknowledged.

Still, it may have been necessary to keep the graycat account functioning, since it was an important house account at Absolute. Next time out, a historical look at graycat, the little house account that could.