Payment processor busted -- what’s going on here?

[2Tone]

Interesting article, though it is missing a lot of information



Michael Olaf Schuett has become the target of a federal investigation after it was discovered he had allegedly transferred over $70 million in online poker winnings to 23,000 mostly American citizens, since 2007.


Related article at which says

Schuett was not associated with any online poker sites in the United States. Instead, he dealt as a middle-man between US players and foreign-based gambling sites.

I’m confused. Is the implication here that a major online site (23k players!) is for some reason routing their payments to American players through this one guy? Why? Were the players aware of this? Was the site/sites? How did he successfully (well, until he got busted) position himself as a middle man – what was he doing for players that the sites could not do themselves? How did he get clients? What was his cut?

And most importantly -- what there anything in place for him to prevent him from folding up shop one day and leaving for the Bahamas with all the money he was “routing”?