Man Arrested on Charges of Stealing $1M from Poker Pro

Poker players cannot be too careful when transporting money or even storing it at home. This is not an advertisement for banks or safety deposit boxes, but it is a plea for poker players to take more precautions to keep themselves and their property safer.

Poker pros sometimes lose the meaning of money. They play for the win or the glory, the challenge and the reputation. Whatever the motivation, a lot of pros play better when they don’t associate a preconceived notion of a dollar amount with their chips. They try to look at long-term results instead of money won or lost in a day. It keeps them focused on their play, not the real-world value of financial wins and losses.

It also makes them a target for criminals.

Chad Power can now attest to how it feels to be that target. He was recently the victim of a $1M theft from his Nevada home. While one of the two suspects is in jail, the other is not. And they allegedly used much of the money to purchase vehicles, so it may be tough to recover the full amount that had been stolen.

$1M in Cash and Chips

Longtime poker pro Chad Power kept a safe in his home that contained $750K in cash and $250K in poker chips. It appears that the safe was one that could be somewhat easily carried away.

One may not recognize the pro’s name, though he had two very significant cashes at the World Series of Poker in 2015 and 2018. The Washington Post even published an article about him and his poker-playing roommates in 2015. Today, though, Power is mostly a cash game player, one who veers toward the higher-stakes games.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Power became a target. Two people saw him pocket a significant amount of money/chips at a poker room on the Las Vegas Strip and followed him home in February 2021. The next time Power left his home, the men broke in and stole the entire safe.

The theft happened in the middle of the afternoon. The two men did not attempt to cover their faces in as they left Power’s house, so security cameras captured their faces. One of the men carried Power’s safe on his shoulder.

Power later told police that he suspected someone followed him home from the casino. When Power was away from his home on February 10, his security system did send an alert that someone broke into the home, but by the time he and the police arrived at the house, the perpetrators were gone.

https://twitter.com/GlennatRJ/status/1395074882925260804?s=20

One of Two in Custody

Police didn’t have a difficult time identifying one of the suspects as Brock Brewer, a 32-year-old who was known to police. Not only did the security footage show his face, the police said that cell phone records clarified his location at the time of the crime as the area of Power’s home.

In addition, police found that Brewer had been driving a new 2021 Dodge Charger, one that he purchased in California just five days after the robbery. He used $30K in cash for the down payment and put the car in his mother’s name. Brewer also purchased a 2018 Maserati SUV in Arizona with $60K in cash. He registered that car, too, in his mother’s name.

Brewer is now in the Clark County Detention Center awaiting a preliminary hearing on June 1. He is charged with several felonies, including home invasion, conspiracy, and the theft of $100K or more.

At least one other suspect remains at large.

Not the First High-Stakes Robbery

Just last year, a woman with close ties to Antonio Esfandiari’s father kept a key to the Esfandiaris’ Las Vegas condominium after she moved out. Svitlana Silva also knew passcodes to electronic devices and door codes within the condo. She allegedly stole $150K from their home safe, as well as poker chips estimated at $300K to $500K, Antonio’s 2012 Big One for One Drop bracelet worth $350K, and other watches valued at more than $14K.

The Esfandiaris alerted police after Silva almost immediately played in a private high-stakes poker game, starting with just $5K but then losing and continuously buying in for another $80K, then $100K in Aria poker chips, and then $200K in Bellagio poker chips. Several other clues led police to Silva.

ARREST REPORT: Police say Svitlana Silva broke into poker professional Antonio Esfandiari's condo and stole more than $1 million in cash, poker chips and valuables. She then was caught after gambling some of that money and chips at a poker tournament. https://t.co/t5y0arJSOb

— 8 News Now (@8NewsNow) August 29, 2020

The previous year, one poker player tried to rob poker pro Darren Elias’ home in New Jersey. It happened in March 2019 when Elias and his wife were out. Their two-year-old daughter was home with a 19-year-old babysitter when Shannon Soroka forced entry into the home, confined the babysitter to a room at gunpoint, and searched for cash or chips.

Luckily, the babysitter escaped through a window and ran for help. She identified Soroka, who was a poker player in Pennsylvania, and the police arrested him. It turned out that Soroka had accumulated significant debt from gambling and drugs. He pleaded guilty in late 2019 and received a sentence of 13 years in prison.

Appreciate all the support and everyone who has reached out during this nightmare. No worse feeling than having your family in danger.

— Darren Elias (@DarrenElias) March 23, 2019