FBI Prosecutes Money Launderers Involved in False Advertising on eBay and Other Websites
By Anna Johnson on December 9th, 2009The U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia has sentenced two Bulgarian nationals to prison for their roles as money launderers in a $1.2 million criminal scheme involving false advertising on eBay and other websites.
Ivaylo Vasilev Pletnyov, 39, and Nikolay Georgiev Minchev, 45, both of whom pleaded guilty to their respective charges, had participated in a scheme to post advertisements on eBay and other websites, fraudulently offering expensive vehicles and boats for sale.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman sentenced Pletnyov to four years in prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering, along with three years of supervised release following his prison term, and ordered him to pay $306,502 in restitution. The judge sentenced Minchev to 30 months in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay $270,444 in restitution.
So what exactly did Pletnyov and Minchev do? Read carefully because as simple as their scheme was, it managed to net more than $1.2 million from its U.S. victims!
According to court documents, from around July 2005 through May 2006, Pletnyov and Minchev posted ads on eBay and other websites offering expensive vehicles and boats for sale. When respondents to the ads expressed interest in the vehicles or boats, they were contacted by email and instructed to wire transfer payments through ‘eBay Secure Traders.’
‘eBay Secure Traders’ was supposedly an escrow organization that would keep the victims’ money in escrow pending delivery of the merchandise. In fact, it was a fabrication with no relationship with eBay at all.
The victims’ funds were actually wired directly into bank accounts in Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Greece that were controlled by Pletnyov, Minchev and their co-conspirators. According to court documents, in less than one year, the criminal conspiracy netted more than $1.2 million.
The United States government is currently working with its counterparts in Romania and Poland to prosecute the other alleged participants in the scheme.
