Federal Criminal Defense Blog : Georgia Federal Criminal Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Gillen Withers & Lake Law Firm : White Collar Crime, RICO, Trial : Atlanta, Savannah, GA

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged four Canadian citizens and two Florida residents for an alleged Ponzi scheme which defrauded more than 3,000 investors across the U.S. and Canada of approximately $300 million, according to an SEC press release. The SEC has filed a complaint alleging that Milowe Allen Brost and Gary Allen Sorenson of Calgary, Alberta, devised the scheme in which the defendants claimed to be an independent financial education which had discovered investment opportunities in certain companies engaged in gold mining. The defendants held seminars in which they promised investors they could earn 18 to 36 percent annual returns. Brost, Sorenson and the other defendants are alleged to have concealed the fact that the companies, Syndicated Gold Depository (SGD) and Merendon Mining Corp., Ltd., were actually shell companies which the defendants owned or controlled. The defendants claimed that Merendon was a successful gold mining and refining company.

Brost and Sorenson allegedly used various aliases, shell corporations and trust agreements to conceal their ownership of SGD. They would transmit investor money to accounts in Europe, Asia and South America. The defendants allegedly used investor monies to make interest payments to other investors, and for lavish personal spending, including for a luxury fishing resort in South America. Sorenson also allegedly took investors on tours of an alleged refinery in Honduras where they were shown the pouring of gold bars.

Larry Lee Adair of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Martin M. Werner of Boca Raton, Florida, are also charged in the complaint.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Once again demonstrating the massive potential for crime created by our digital age, 28 year-old Albert Gonzalez pled guilty to two counts of conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to payment card networks last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey according to a DOJ press release. Gonzalez was charged with hacking into the computer networks of major financial and retail organizations and stealing data on tens of millions of credit cards and debit cards, in one of the largest data breaches in U.S. history. He gained unauthorized access to the payment card networks of New Jersey-based, Heartland Payment Systems; Texas-based convenience store chain 7-Eleven; and Hannaford Brothers Co. Inc., a Maine-based supermarket chain. He was indicted in New Jersey in August 2009. In September 2009, Gonzalez also pled guilty in the U.S. Distric Court for the District of Massachusetts to 19 counts of conspiracy, computer fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft for hacking into retailers including TJX Companies, BJ’s Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble and Sports Authority. In the same month, he pled guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for hacking into the system of Dave and Buster's, a restaurant chain, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Gonzalez had several servers, or "hacking platforms," and would give access to the servers to other hackers. Gonzalez and others would use the platforms to store malicious software, or "malware," in launching attacks on their victims. Gonzalez's plea agreement states that it was forseeable that Gonzalez and his co-conspirators would have used the malware to steal tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers, affecting more than 250 financial institutions.

Gonzalez tested malware by running multiple anti-virus programs in an attempt to ascertain if the programs detected the malware. According to information in the plea agreement, it was foreseeable to Gonzalez that his co-conspirators would use malware to Gonzalez was indicted in New Jersey in August 2009 for this criminal conduct. His plea agreement provides for a sentence of imprisonment between 17 and 25 years. He is scheduled to be sentenced in the Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey cases in March.

The charges against Gonzalez are staggering in their scope. They also demonstrate that would-be cybercriminals should consider their online aliases carefully, as they may resurface in a Federal indictment, as in the case of Albert Gonzalez a/k/a "j4guar17" a/k/a "soupnazi," etc.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link