Apparently, fraud can happen anywhere…even in Brownwood, Texas, with participants who don’t realize that anything illegal is happening. According to a recent article on PCWorld.com, the United States Federal Trade Commission has recently disrupted a long-running online scam that enabled offshore crooks to steal millions of U.S. dollars from unknowing consumers, taking pennies at a time.
By taking smaller amounts alert systems were avoided. For four years, according to the FTC, the scam had been running.
In the PCWorld.com article written by Robert McMillan who covers computer security and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service, “FTC Says Scammers Stole Millions, Using Virtual Companies”:
It was a very patient scam,” said Steve Wernikoff, a staff attorney with the FTC who is prosecuting the case. “The people who are behind this are very valmeticulous.”
The FTC has not identified those responsible for the fraud, but in March, it quietly filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Illinois. This has frozen the gang’s U.S. assets and also allowed the FTC to shut down merchant accounts and 14 “money mules” — U.S. residents recruited by the criminals to move money offshore to countries such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Estonia.
Even in Brownwood, Texas a local was sucked into the scheme the article notes. In a letter to the judge presiding over the case, one of the “mules”, James P. Smith, says he worked for one of the scammers for four years without realizing that anything illegal was going on. According to the article, Smith now says he is “ashamed” to be named in the FTC action, and offers to help catch his former boss, who used the name Alex Moore.
Small thefts of under $10 kept the scheme under the radars of fraud monitors and set up over 100 fake companies to process the transactions.
Watch your bank accounts, balance them carefully and monitor credit cards to avoid being a victim of these schemes.
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