Denver-area car-ads Web scam funneled hundreds of thousands

[Wayne]

Denver-area car-ads Web scam funneled hundreds of thousands overseas

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_2 ... d-hundreds

Federal authorities are unraveling the work of a ring of foreign nationals who wired hundreds of thousands of dollars they allegedly received from bogus used-car ads on websites such as Craigslist and eBay.

It's unclear how many consumers were taken in by the phony ads, but federal court records indicate the ring — made up of people from Poland and Romania — collected more than $750,000 in less than two years and used Denver-area Western Union offices to send the funds overseas.

At least one person has been convicted in the investigation, which is continuing.

Details of the scam were revealed in papers that federal prosecutors filed last month to keep some of the funds and computer gear seized in a raid at a Glendale motel.

Nearly all the money came from unsuspecting consumers who thought they were buying motor vehicles listed for sale on Craigslist and eBay. Buyers sent money to the scammers, who wired it to someone based in Denver, who then wired it to a variety of accounts overseas, mostly in Romania.

That consumers can still be taken in by online scammers, despite a litany of warnings over the years, is of little surprise to experts.

"If you've not seen the scam before, then it's new to you, and there is no shortage of people taken in," consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky said.

The key to ignoring the "greed and joy of finding a bargain that seems too good to be true," Dworsky said, is to catch the most obvious warning sign.

"There is almost no legitimate seller of anything a consumer would buy who would have you wire money to them," he said. "That's a scam flag."

In the hotel raid, federal officers arrested Bogdan Untu, a Romanian who came to Denver last year under a work visa issued for a job in Florida, court records show. He apparently never went to Florida and has never worked in this country.

Untu in December pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Denver to a single federal charge of structuring — transactions intended to avoid reporting requirements — and was sentenced to time served and later deported.

The Western Unions were in Safeway and King Soopers stores scattered around the metro area, court papers show, and wires were sent on the same day from different locations.

Several names used were those from stolen Norwegian passports, and the people who picked up the wired money typically had a different name.

David Migoya: 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com