Amir Golestan, Micfo CEO, Pleads Guilty to 20 Counts Wire Fraud

Charleston, South Carolina — Mid-trial collapse. That’s what prosecutors called it when tech firm Micfo, LLC, and its 38-year-old CEO, Amir Golestan of Charleston, pleaded guilty to twenty counts of wire fraud after evidence exposed a sprawling scheme to defraud the Internet’s addressing backbone. The plea came abruptly as federal prosecutors presented damning digital traces showing Golestan fabricated ten fake companies — dubbed “Channel Partners” — to illegally obtain and sell millions of dollars’ worth of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses.

From February 2014 to May 2019, Golestan, operating through Micfo — a company founded in 1999 and claiming to offer web hosting services — engineered a web of deception. He created fictional businesses complete with fabricated websites, fake employees, and forged documentation to satisfy the allocation requirements of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN). ARIN, a nonprofit that manages IP address distribution across the U.S., Canada, and parts of the Caribbean, mandates that entities prove legitimate network need before receiving IPv4 blocks — a finite resource that has skyrocketed in value as supply dwindled.

Using these phantom Channel Partners, Golestan circumvented ARIN’s policies, securing valuable IPv4 address blocks under false pretenses. He then transferred or sold those rights, cashing in on the booming secondary market where individual IPv4 addresses now trade for hundreds of dollars each. The fraud allowed him to profit immensely while undermining the integrity of the global Internet infrastructure — a system built on trust and transparency.

Acting U.S. Attorney M. Rhett DeHart didn’t mince words: “Corporate and executive malfeasance can be difficult to detect and even harder to prosecute,” he said. “This case is an excellent example of the success we can achieve when we work with our federal and agency partners.” DeHart specifically credited the FBI and ARIN, highlighting ARIN’s Chief Customer Officer John Sweeting, General Counsel Michael Abejuela, and outside counsel Steve Ryan and Sam Neel of McDermott Will & Emery LLP.

Criminal Chief Nathan Williams, who led the prosecution with Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Bower, emphasized the technical obscurity that often shields white-collar criminals. “Corporate wrongdoers often avoid accountability by obscuring their criminal conduct through complicated business procedures or by operating in areas unfamiliar to most people,” Williams said. “The world of Internet resources is one of those areas. However, this case shows that the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office are capable of detecting complex crimes and prosecuting corporate and executive criminals.”

Susan Ferensic, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Columbia Field Office, issued a stark warning: “Like many corporate fraud criminals often do, Golestan made the mistake of assuming his scheme would not be discovered. Make no mistake, the FBI along with our local, state, and federal partners, will work nonstop to uncover and pursue charges for criminals who adversely affect our Internet infrastructure.” John Curran, ARIN’s President and CEO, added that Golestan’s actions harmed ARIN and its customer community — and that the guilty plea sends a clear message: “We hope this outcome will deter any other parties contemplating fraudulent schemes to obtain or transfer Internet resources.”