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Jason Galanis and his brother and business partner Derek were arrested as part of a big Drug Enforcement Agency bust of a San Diego ecstasy manufacturing and distribution ring, Forbes said. Derek Galanis was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in jail, but charges were dropped against Jason Galanis.
Jason Galanis has also been identified as recently as last fall as the only person associated with Penthouse Financial, a separate company that controls Penthouse?s website. Galanis now says it was more of a licensing deal, and that the contract has since been terminated.
Forbes said that the fact that First Data, iBill?s merchant bank, would have to sign off on any deal that hands over a treasure trove of sensitive credit card data to Galanis, or whomever he purports to represent, doesn?t sit well with the conservative Greenwood Village, Colo., company, which also owns Western Union, TeleCheck and now Concord EFS.
First Data has been shopping around its more than $1 billion porn and high-risk merchant portfolio, made up mostly of iBill and a handful of other large adult online payment intermediaries like it, Forbes said.
The deal, announced late Monday, ends a chapter for credit card processor Intercept, which purchased iBill in 2002 for $104 million. IBill said that it shed the unit as part of a plan to focus on its core business of outsourced tech solutions to community banks.
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