A still from live video captured during the EPT Berlin poker heist. (image courtesy of RTL)

The bold, action movie-esque armed robbery made headlines around the world, as a gang armed with assault rifles stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from a European Poker Tour event. And now, the trial has begun for the accused ringleaders of the attack.

The four men who actually carried out the robbery at the EPT event at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Berlin have already been tried and convicted. But the two men accused of masterminding the March 6th attack, Mohammed Abou-Charka and Ibrahim Al Moussa, began their trial yesterday, in Germany. The four convicted robbers are expected to testify today, while the trial will likely continue until November.

According to police sources, Abou-Charka allegedly met with the four robbers at a take-out food stand, to brief them about plans for the heist. The alleged ringleader, Al Moussa, was playing in the poker tournament, and watched the robbery from the hotel lobby. His lawyer denies the allegations, and says there's no evidence linking him to the attack.

The gang got away with approximately 242,000 Euros in the attack, and only 4,000 Euros have been recovered. Nobody was killed during the heist, but a security guard suffered injuries. If convicted, Abou-Charka and Al Moussa each face up to 15 years in prison.

The scene of the crime at the EPT Berlin poker tournament.

Master criminals, these guys weren't. Though the four guys allegedly responsible for the armed robbery of a European Poker Tour Berlin event did manage to get away with 242,000 Euros in loot, but they didn't get long to enjoy it. The last of the four suspects in the spectacular heist has been arrested and is behind bars.

The wheels started coming off for the gang when the first suspect turned himself in last week. He identified three other men, and they were put on a wanted list. According to reports, two of the men fled the country, which seems like a pretty smart move. But in what seems like an honorable, though not as prudent, move, the two suspects promptly flew back to Berlin and surrendered to police.

As of right now, the Berlin police aren't saying whether all the loot has been recovered. But with all four alleged criminals behind bars, it seems like only a matter of time before what's left of the cash is found.

And in some unsurprising news, the upcoming European Poker Tour Austria event is promising tightened security at the tournament. Among other measures, they'll have a number of plain-clothes cops hiding among the players and audience, just in case.

Police have released these photos of the EPT Berlin robbery suspects.

Less than 24 hours after getting their first big break in the case of the EPT Berlin heist, German police have a second suspect in custody.

Ahmad al-Awayti, 20, was apprehended by police in Berlin yesterday after approaching officers at a subway station in Rosenthaler Square and telling them, “I believe you are looking for me.” With his arrest there are now only two more suspects, Mustafa Ucarakus and Jihad Chetwie, still at large. Police consider Ucarakus to be dangerous, as he has a history of violent crime. They also believe that he and Chetwie may have fled the country

According to the German daily Bild, police are also focusing once again on the man they questioned last week. Mohammed B, as the police are referring to him, was originally released after being questioned by police in Berlin. But now they believe that he may actually have been involved in the crime; they found a piece of paper on him that had six names written down, including the names of three of the suspected robbers. He has not been re-arrested at this time.

The young man who got the ball rolling by turning himself in to authorities yesterday, referred to in Bild as Vedat C, is believed to be the owner of the black Mercedes used to flee the scene of the crime. His share of the €242,000 take was €40,000, and apparently he intends to return all that money.

This case is obviously still developing, but the one thing that seems certain is that the men who robbed the first-ever European Poker Tour held in Berlin are not going to get away as easily as they had hoped.

One of the perpetrators of the EPT Berlin is apparently now in police custody.

A 21-year-old man has turned himself in to police in connection with the robbery of the EPT Berlin earlier this month.

Very little information is available at the moment but according to the Germany newspaper Bild the man was accompanied by his lawyer to a police station in Berlin, where he surrendered himself. The other three EPT Berlin robbers are still at large, though it’s hard to imagine them getting very far now that their accomplice is in custody and most likely being a very cooperative witness to the crime.

The story of the EPT Berlin robbery has been out of the ordinary since the four masked men first pulled off their heist. The clearly amateur group carried out a snatch-and-grab operation that took advantage of the element of surprise while hotel security was preparing to move the prize money for a side event from the tournament area to the main safe. However, they were caught on camera by both videographers and still photographers and left physical evidence at the scene of the crime.

The tournament eventually continued after being interrupted with just three tables remaining, and American Kevin MacPhee outlasted the field to win the €1,000,000 top prize. Mainstream media around the world picked up on the robbery story and ran with it, and MacPhee appeared on the CBS Early Show live via satellite to talk about his experience during the robbery.

German police arrested a man last week in connection with the robbery, but he had to be let go when it turned out that he actually didn’t rob the poker tournament. Leads were in short supply until today’s development, which might prove to be just the help police need to track down the rest of the crew.

Police still looking for EPT poker bandits. (photo courtesy of DPA)

After proclaiming that the poker bandits had left "mountains of evidence" behind during last week's dramatic robbery of the European Poker Tour Berlin tournament, German police arrested their first suspect on Friday night. Unfortunately, they released him today, citing a lack of evidence connecting him to the crime, as well as some new information that proved he wasn't involved in the crime.

He first got on the police radar due to his physical resemblance to one of the bandits seen on the video footage of the heist. As well, the suspect had served time in prison for his involvement in a somewhat similar robbery back in 2004, when his gang attempted to rob another German casino. But after a search of the man's apartment, and extensive questioning, detectives released him.

All this means that, so far, this armed gang is still at large despite the fact that they were filmed by multiple cameras, seen by dozens of witnesses and were, according to the police, completely amateurish. Maybe that 242,200 Euro jackpot they made off with was enough to buy them all plane tickets to somewhere warm, tropical and far away from German law enforcement.

Kevin MacPhee talked to CBS about the EPT Berlin heist.

It’s not often that the mainstream American media pays much attention to a poker tournament outside of the World Series of Poker, but the recent EPT Berlin heist has all sorts of big media outlets abuzz. Major television network CBS is no exception, and earlier this week the tournament’s winner, Kevin MacPhee, joined The Early Show live via satellite from Berlin to talk about what happened during the raid.

“We heard some screaming and yelling and we weren’t sure what was really going on,” MacPhee told Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez. “There was a lot of panic and the TV stage started to collapse. When that started to happen, all of the players got up out of their seats to see what was happening.”

MacPhee said he knew the only thing he knew of that could cause the kind of commotion that broke out in the poker room was someone with a gun, so his first instinct was to seek cover. Luckily the bandits never entered the poker room and nobody was seriously injured during the incident, which saw the robbers make off with €242,000 ($339,000 US).

Rodriguez asked if it was safe to say this was the most exciting poker tournament MacPhee had ever been a part of, and he responded, “I would say it was definitely the most exciting poker tournament. It was one of the craziest days I’ve ever experienced.” With any luck at all he'll be able to stay away from that kind of excitement at future poker tournaments.

Police have not tracked down any of the suspects in the EPT Berlin robbery at this time but they remain confident they’ll get their men.

Police say the EPT Berlin robbers were "stupid amateurs."

The winners at EPT Berlin have been crowned and millions of euros’ worth of prize money has been handed out, even though a fair chunk of that money was stolen by armed bandits last Saturday. Police in Berlin are still searching for the perpetrators of the crime and have no suspects in custody as of this time, but they appear confident that they’ll get their men.

Police say they believe the armed gang had an inside man working at the EPT Berlin, because the heist was timed to take the money and run at exactly the moment that it was being prepared for transport to the hotel’s main safe. That means they’re now looking for a fifth suspect in addition to the four masked men who carried out the robbery.

After a whirlwind of initial reports that had the robbers armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades, police now say the bandits actually had handguns and machetes. Their total take was €242,000, the equivalent of about $339,000 US.

Investigators are sure that this bunch of robbers was an amateur crew due to the methods used in carrying out the plan. “The way they were armed and behaved, as well as the mountain of evidence they left behind, already indicates that the police will quickly identify them," German police union chief Rainer Wendt told Agence France-Presse today, adding that the thieves dipped to "new depths of stupidity to carry out such a raid in front of running surveillance cameras."

Though this crew was amateur, German police are worried about what the attack might mean for future poker robberies. “When such semi-professionals land a coup like this, then the desire for a piece of the pie grows among the real big guys in the underworld,” a police spokesman told the Berliner Zeitung.

Kevin MacPhee was all smiles last night in Berlin.

Kevin MacPhee is the latest American to conquer a stop on the European Poker Tour after winning the EPT Berlin main event.

MacPhee, 29, of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, entered the final table with the chip lead. Known in the online poker world as “ImaLuckSac,” the serial satellite winner put his advantage to work from the opening hand in a mad dash for the €1 million top prize. 

After Germany's Nico Behling (8th place, €72,000) was eliminated on the second hand of the final table by Marcel Koller, MacPhee and his eventual heads-up opponent took over. He busted the table’s other German, Marko Neumann (7th, €120,000), with a set of sevens against A-K. Finland’s Ilari Tahkokallio intervened by taking out Koller (6th, €165,000) with pocket queens against A-Q before MacPhee got back to work, eliminating Ketul Nathwani (5th, €210,000) with A-9 versus A-6.

Artur Wasek (4th, €280,000) was next to go when he ran into a major cooler against Marc Inizan, getting his money in as a 4-to-1 dog with pocket queens versus pocket kings. But Inizan (3rd, €350,000) had a cooler of his own when he flopped top pair on the same board that gave MacPhee the nut straight.

Unlike a lot of major tournament heads-up finales, this one actually had some history behind it: MacPhee and Tahkokallio had actually met each other in the ultimate duel of last year’s EPT London £1,000 Pot Limit Hold’em/Omaha event. Tahkokallio came out the winner there, but after three hours of back-and-forth battle in Berlin he found himself all-in with just a 26% chance to win. That chance disappeared when the river card made a straight, sending Tahkokallio (2nd, €600,000) home and giving Kevin MacPhee a satisfying €1,000,000 EPT Berlin win.

Footage recorded from the live event feed. (video courtesy of YouTube)

In a scene the was seemingly right out of a movie, six men stormed into the European Poker Tour - Berlin tournament at a luxury hotel in Germany earlier today, and stole upwards of $1.1 million dollars. The gunmen, reportedly armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and hand-grenades, sent players and staff rushing for cover as they grabbed the tournament's grand prize and escaped.

Several people were hurt in the raid, but nobody was killed or seriously injured, despite some gunfire and the fact that the assailants threatened to set off grenades. There were a number of armed security guards working at the hotel, and reports say that at least one was menaced and disarmed by the gang.

The tournament had 1,000 participants and was scheduled for five days of play at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Berlin. It was also being broadcast live, with the tournament's feed providing the dramatic footage shown in the YouTube video.

According to reports, the tournament continued play several hours after the heist.