A third Australian resident, Eugeni ‘Zhenya’ Tsvetnenko, a Russian-born Perth internet tycoon and society page regular who has appeared on the BRW Rich List with an estimated fortune in excess of $100 million, is in jail in Perth awaiting an extradition hearing on fraud allegations. He reportedly splashed $1 million on his wedding and flew his wife to party with Snoop Dogg for her birthday. His wife is not accused of any wrongdoing.
In court, the men and their alleged co-conspirators were accused of using a practice called “auto-subscribing” to charge monthly fees for unsolicited messages about celebrity gossip, horoscopes, jokes, love tips and trivia, without customers’ knowledge or permission.
Daniel Lynch, a lawyer for Mr Pearse, told Reuters his client has pleaded not guilty, and will propose a bail package at a hearing next month. Mr Tsvetnenko has been fighting extradition from Australia and denies the allegations against him.
Prosecutors said Mr Pearse was chief executive and Mr Liu a Java development engineer for a company called Bullroarer. The company was affiliated with Tatto Inc, a company that purchased large numbers of mobile phone numbers to target with messages.
Perth-based entrepreneur Eugenie ‘Zhenya’ Tsvetnenko awaits extradition to the US in a Perth jail.Credit:AVWEST
Victims were charged $US9.99 a month even if they ignored or deleted the messages, and were often unaware anything was amiss until unintelligible items such as “96633IQ16CALL8668611606” began appearing on their phone bills, prosecutors said.
The scheme allegedly ran from 2011 to 2013.
In court documents obtained by the Herald, prosecutors allege that “some of the proceeds were used to fund a lavish lifestyle of, among other things, multi-million dollar homes, expensive vacations and gambling”.
Eugeni ‘Zhenya’ Tsvetnenko and Lydia Tsvetnenko, who is not acc ..
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