Figures in Arenas Gambling Case Linked to Building in Unsolved L.A. Disappearance

Posted on: August 1, 2025, 11:00h. 

Last updated on: August 1, 2025, 11:01h.

Philip Conneller @casinoorgphilc Read More
Expertise: Gaming Business, Regulation, Tribal Gaming.
  • Arenas indicted for running high-stakes poker games illegally
  • Some co-defendants tied to underground poker room operators
  • Building where Planck vanished housed linked illegal poker room

Some of those arrested alongside former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas are associated with people suspected of running a separate underground poker room – one that was connected to the 2021 disappearance of a Los Angeles woman, according to law enforcement.

Gilbert Arenas, Heidi Planck disappearance, illegal poker room, Los Angeles gambling case, underground gambling ring
Heidi Planck disappeared from a downtown LA apartment building in October 2021 where people associated with some of the defendants arrested last week ran an illegal poker room. (Image: NBC Dateline)

Arenas, 43, was indicted on Wednesday for his involvement in running high-stakes games at his Encino, Calif. mansion. Fellow defendants include Yevgeni Gershman, an Israeli organized crime suspect, Evgenni Tourevski, 48, Allan Austria, 52, Yarin Cohen, 27, and Ievgen Krachun, 43.

Each of the five is charged with one count of conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business and one count of operating an illegal gambling business.

Heidi Planck Disappearance

A law enforcement source told NBC Los Angeles on Thursday that several of the five defendants – though not Arenas – had ties to an illegal poker room in a downtown LA high-rise where Heidi Planck was last seen but did not specify which ones.

It’s unclear why law enforcement chose to leak the information, but it could be to reignite public interest in a cold case.

Planck was 38 when she vanished on Oct.17, 2021 after leaving her son’s football game at half time, appearing agitated. She was last seen on surveillance video entering the high-rise at 12th and Hope in downtown LA — the same building that housed an illegal poker room. But she was never seen leaving. Her dog was later found wandering alone inside the building.

In late 2021, LAPD conducted a massive landfill search, based on forensic evidence from that building, which they believed indicated she died inside.

In 2023, she was legally declared deceased, though her body was never recovered.

The law enforcement sources told NBC Los Angeles they believed several people who were at the downtown apartment building on the day Planck disappeared knew what happened to her but had refused to cooperate.

Financial Scandal in the Background

Planck’s boss at Camden Capital Partners was Jason Sugarman who, with his business partner, Jason Galanis, was accused by the SEC of a multimillion-dollar securities fraud.

The pair were alleged to have stolen $43 million from pension and tribal funds. In 2023, Sugarman was ordered by a court to pay $10.2 million for his role in a scheme involving fraudulent bond investment

However, beyond working at her company, there is no evidence or public allegation implicating Sugarman in Planck’s disappearance.

A December 2021 report by the US Sun claimed that a witness at the apartment building told a source that Planck died of a drug overdose during a party at the poker room and her body was shoved into the garbage chute. However, no credible media outlets, law enforcement agencies, or court documents have supported or confirmed the overdose theory.