Six Romanians accused of USD 3 mln internet frauds in the US

Six Romanians and an Albanian were arrested on Wednesday (December 6 ) following an investigation made by the FBI in the US, Romania, the Czech Republic, Great Britain and Canada, for a USD 3 million fraud case on the internet, according to AFP. The defendants with ages between 30 and 43 years were arrested for electronic fraud, money laundering and forgery of passports in United States, following an investigation by the FBI. The seven defendants were publishing adverts on sites such as eBay, Cars.com or AutoTrader.com sales for vehicles, boats, motorcycles and other items worth between USD 10,000 and 45,000. Also luxury cars were sold on internet for thousands of dollars, but the clients ended up never receiving the items they had bought. After the sale agreement was signed by the clients, false invoices were issued along with PayPal certifications or of other online payment services with instructions to pay the amounts to fake bank accounts. According to the investigation, the defendants made USD 3 million using this scheme. If they are convicted, they could be sentenced to 20 years in prison each for internet fraud and money laundering, as well as receiving 10-year sentences for forgery of passports. Ioana Toader, ioana.toader@romania-insider.com (photo source: sxc.hu)