She'll be dancing with refund from investment scam
"DL" is going to put on her dancing shoes. After being lured into a fraudulent investment scheme that began almost 13 years ago, the victim that federal authorities would identify only by her initials told a claims administrator that she was so happy to be getting her money back that she was going to go dancing.
"DL" is going to put on her dancing shoes.
After being lured into a fraudulent investment scheme that began almost 13 years ago, the victim that federal authorities would identify only by her initials told a claims administrator that she was so happy to be getting her money back that she was going to go dancing.
"I breathed a gigantic sigh of relief. It's been an especially long road," the woman told the administrator, according to federal officials.
The woman was one of 869 people, 113 of them in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, who would be getting money back that they had invested in a fraudulent Internet start-up company based in New York, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced yesterday.
The scheme involved two main players, Jean Pierre Collardeau and Charles Nisenbaum, both French nationals, and eight co-conspirators, officials said.
With the help of their co-conspirators, Collardeau and Nisenbaum fraudulently issued, promoted and sold millions of shares of stock of Pro Net Link, which didn't exist, officials said. Collardeau and Nissenbaum talked up shares of Pro Net Link on a Web site called Stock Genie, claiming that a fortune was to be made.
The 10 were indicted in the case in 2003, but not all of them were convicted. The heaviest sentences went to Collardeau, who got 50 months in prison. Nissenbaum served 4 1/2 months. Both were deported, said John P. Kelleghan, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Philadelphia.
After the indictment, Kelleghan said, investigators identified the defendants' assets and over time were able to seize the fraudulent money, which totaled more than $7.5 million, and start reimbursing the victims.
Once victims came forward and proved that they had been defrauded, Kelleghan said, the claims administrator was able to start disbursing the funds.
"We are quite happy with the results," Kelleghan said. "It's not often that we are able to give back to the people that are victims of these activities."