NordVPN Promotion

Home / Blogs

Spammer Convicted on Wire Fraud Charges - United States v. Diamreyan

United States v. Diamreyan, 09-cr-0260 (JCH) (D. Conn.) (April 16, 2010)

Earlier this year Okpako Mike Diamreyan was found guilty of wire fraud. The district court recently denied his motion for judgment of acquittal.

Diamreyan “was charged with devising a scheme to defraud known as an ‘advance fee.’” As the court describes it, this is a “scam . . . where a person asks an individual to pay an advance fee in order to obtain a larger sum of money, which the individual [victim] never receives.”

The government presented evidence that defendant used a Yahoo email account ([email protected]) for over ten years, and presented evidence of emails sent to victims, telephone calls made, and wire transfers which were initiated by the victims.

The stories about Diamreyan’s purported identity, the amount of money available, the reason it was tied up, the money needed to free it, and the name of the contact person changed from email to email, but the overall scam was the same. Frequently, Diamreyan would include his phone number (one of those listed on his visa application) in the email and ask people to contact someone by a different name at that number. For example, in one email, Diamreyan told the email recipient that he was in Sierra Leone, and his family’s $23.4 million was on consignment at the airport. He then asked the recipient to contact the airport director, Rev. Dr. Richard Camaro, to release the money from this consignment.

Defendant’s arguments in favor of a judgment of acquittal did not end up carrying the day.

Two things about the case struck me. First, people who respond to these emails (from [email protected], no less) and transfer money to complete strangers in the hopes of receiving more money do in fact exist. Second, the amounts transferred were nominal. In this case, the amounts were between $50 and $250. (I’m curious as to what the government will end up arguing as a loss amount for sentencing purposes. I’m sure it will present some sort of projection of how much money defendant must have gained.)

Here’s the press release from the US Attorney’s Office: “Federal Jury Finds Nigerian Citizen Guilty of Charges Related to Internet ‘Advance Fee’ Fraud Scheme.” According to the press release he faces up to 20 years and a fine of up to $250,000. [I don’t have a good frame of reference, but this seems absurdly high.] Also, not to make light of the plight of the victims, but you would think the government has bigger fish to fry?

By Venkat Balasubramani, Tech-Internet Lawyer at Focal PLLC

Follow Venkat on Twitter here.

Visit Page

Filed Under

Comments

Comment Title:

  Notify me of follow-up comments

We encourage you to post comments and engage in discussions that advance this post through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can report it using the link at the end of each comment. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of CircleID. For more information on our comment policy, see Codes of Conduct.

CircleID Newsletter The Weekly Wrap

More and more professionals are choosing to publish critical posts on CircleID from all corners of the Internet industry. If you find it hard to keep up daily, consider subscribing to our weekly digest. We will provide you a convenient summary report once a week sent directly to your inbox. It's a quick and easy read.

Related

Topics

Cybersecurity

Sponsored byVerisign

New TLDs

Sponsored byRadix

IPv4 Markets

Sponsored byIPv4.Global

Threat Intelligence

Sponsored byWhoisXML API

Brand Protection

Sponsored byCSC

Domain Names

Sponsored byVerisign

DNS

Sponsored byDNIB.com

NordVPN Promotion