From a rags-to-riches backstory that involved a booming start-up, a $600,000 wedding and a fleet of luxury cars, the story of playboy tech entrepreneur, Eugeni Zhenya Tsvetnenko, 41, has ended not with a bang but with a whimper.
On Thursday, the Perth-based former tycoon, was extradited to the US where he face charges relating to wire fraud, identity theft and money laundering. Photos released by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) show Tsvetnenko in a plain grey tracksuit and white sneakers as he handed over to the U.S. Marshals Service at Perth International Airport.
The mobile mogul and his co-conspirators have been accused by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of defrauding victims approximately $41,389,725 (A$59 million) through an auto-subscribing scheme which charged mobile phone customers for unsolicited texts without their knowledge or consent.
This included content involving horoscopes, trivia, and celebrity gossip. Authorities allege this practice made Tsventnenko and his associates more than $20 million (A$28.5 million) in proceeds, with Tsventnenko believed to have kept up to 70 per cent of this.
In a statement issued by US authorities, US Attorney Damian Williams thanked Australian authorities for their help in ensuring Tsventnenko will now have to “answer the call of American justice”.
“Eugeni Tsvetnenko is alleged to have surreptitiously subscribed hundreds of thousands of cell phone users to a $9.99 per-month charge for recurring text messages they did not approve or want,” he said.
Inside Tsvetnenko’s downfall
Prior to Tsvetnenko’s criminal proceedings, the high-flying millionaire boasted a rags to riches story which only bolstered his new-found notoriety.
Tsvetnenko migrated with his family to Australia aged 12, before dropping out from university in 2009. According to The West Australian he alchemised a bank account of just $200 to an estimated fortune of $100 million.
The publication also quoted him as saying: “I’ve made so much money so quick that I haven’t had time to count it. It sounds funny but it’s just too hard”.
By the age of 29 he had beaten both Hugh Jackman and Cate Blanchett in BRW’s 2009 Young Rich List thanks to his lucrative computer program that could deliver and charge consumers for ‘premium’ text messaging content. Celebrating the landmark birthday, the party even boasted a performance from famed rapper Snoop Dogg.
According to a 2009 feature by Channel 7’s Today Tonight, other highlights of his lavish life included “his and her Lambourghinis,” a $600,000 wedding to his socialite (now ex) wife Lydia Tsvetnenko and a housing portfolio spanning seven homes in Australia and one overseas.
Despite the opulence, it’s alleged by US authorities Tsvetnenko’s involvement in illegal activity against American consumers began in April 2012 and continued through 2013 involving web-aggregation business, Mobile Messenger and Australian content providers CF Enterprises and DigiMobi.
Finally in 2016, Tsvetnenko was issued with an official indictment, with the father-of-two arrested by police in the five days before Christmas 2018.
Up until his extradition, the one-time mogul was held on remand in the state’s main maximum security facility, Hakea prison, however it’s believed he’s since been transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
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With Tsvetnenko’s trial set for February 14, court documents indicate he’ll most likely plead not guilty to the charges. Despite this prosecution will also allege he was provided with an “auto-subscribing playbook” which helped him to “conceal the fraud scheme by making it appear as if the customers had, in fact, elected to purchase the text-messaging services, when in truth they had not”.
When Tsvetnenko was taken by US Marshalls, the Special Agent in Charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation, Joleen D. Simpson said his arrest was “clear proof” that among other things, Tsvetnenko’s “vast fortune” would do “little to shield him from answering the charges brought against him by American authorities”.
And for a man who once described his success as something that he “always knew was going to happen,” it’s difficult not to wonder at what point Tsvetnenko saw his desire for affluence morphing into something else.
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