Russian pro poker player Stefan “Stefan11222” Burakov (pictured) is widely regarded as one of the best and most innovative online poker pros in the world.
This week, he has accused his ex-girlfriend, Alena Mironenko, of stealing $3 million in cryptocurrency from him. The accusation was made by Burakov in a discussion thread on the Russian poker forum, GypsyTeam.
For her part, Mironenko is also a user of the GypsyTeam forum. She hit back the next day, denying Burakov’s story. She said Burakov was often lax with his security protocols and someone else was responsible.
The Allegations
The allegations first surfaced on the GypsyTeam poker forum last week. An account known to be Burakov posted the story in a previous ongoing thread he had made. He said the alleged theft occurred in 2022.
He wrote that he suspects it started when he let Mironenko use his tablet. Which had the seed phrase for his crypto wallet stored on it. Burakov says his ex stole the passcode and $3 million in crypto before fleeing with a new boyfriend, who he says is called Maxim Shatilov.
The forum post has since attracted more than 12,391 comments over 605 pages (and counting). As well as talking about his experience, Burakov responded to comments. He said the theft brought him to a bad place, where he considered taking drastic action.
“I was tempted to give the go-ahead to my Italian friends from Bangkok so that they would return my money to me by their methods for only 10% of the reward,” he wrote (translated from Russian).
Preflop Played
But in the end, Burakov says he chose not to chase the money. Instead, he reflected and made changes to himself and his personal data security moving forward. However, he also made cryptic references to more details possibly being revealed in the future.
“Let’s assume that the preflop has been played out, there are 3 streets of trading left before the showdown…” he wrote.
Mironenko responded the next day in the same forum thread. She said that neither she nor Shatilov had anything to do with the alleged $3 million theft. She alleges that she had warned Burakov about the ease of accessibility to passwords and other data stored as images on his mobile devices. She also said he frequently let other people use them despite the sensitive financial data.
High-stakes online poker pro Burakov is more widely known as Stefan11122. He recently beat former online player and now tournament pro Wiktor Malinowski in a high-stakes bankroll race over 50,000 online hands.
David is an online casino expert who specializes in online slots and boasts over 10 years experience writing about iGaming. He has written for a wide range of notable publications, including eSports Insider and WordPlay Magazine.
David graduated Derby University with a BA Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.
