The U.S. Department of Justice in Los Angeles announced this afternoon that a federal grand jury has indicted six foreign nationals–including one in Costa Mesa–for operating an Internet-based sales scam that allegedly defrauded more than $4.2 million from unsuspecting shoppers since 2007.
According to a DOJ press release, the money laundering conspiracy used eBay Motors, Auto Trader, Yahoo Auto, Edmunds.com, Craigslist and PayPal accounts to collect money from individuals across the nation and then funneled the funds to European accounts without ever delivering a single ordered vehicle, boat, motor home or motorcycle.
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“This case demonstrates our ability to track down even the most
sophisticated fraud artist who attempted to hide behind false identities
and the perceived anonymity of the Internet,” United States Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said in a prepared statement.
The Costa Mesa Police Department participated in the investigation (along with the U.S. Secret Service, IRS and the Department of Homeland Security) and arrested Sergej Bugaev,
38, a Russian national and Berlin resident. Two of the suspects were
captured in Nevada and three others apparently are overseas and haven't
yet been apprehended.
Federal agents said the conspirators used sophisticated, legitimate-seeming documents to trick customers.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.