A Bulgarian national was sentenced to 15 months in prison for his role as a money launderer for a transnational criminal group based in Eastern Europe, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division.
Georgi Boychev Georgiev, of Sofia, Bulgaria, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman in the District of Columbia. In addition to his prison term, Georgiev was also sentenced to three years of supervised release following his prison term and was ordered to pay $161,400 in restitution.
Georgiev pleaded guilty on May 13, 2010, to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Georgiev was extradited from Poland to the United Stated in December 2009. Prior to his extradition, Georgiev was incarcerated for over three years in Poland for related offenses.
According to court documents, from approximately May 2006 through October 2006, Georgiev participated in a scheme to post advertisements on eBay and other web sites, fraudulently offering expensive vehicles and boats for sale that the conspirators did not possess.
When the U.S. victims expressed interest in the merchandise, they were contacted directly by an e-mail from a purported seller. The victims were then instructed to wire transfer payments through “eBay Secure Traders”—an entity which has no actual affiliation to eBay but was used as a ruse to persuade the victims that they were sending money into a secure escrow account pending delivery and inspection of their purchases.
The victims’ funds were wired directly into bank accounts in Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Greece and Poland, which were controlled by Georgiev and his co-conspirators. According to court documents, in less than one year, the criminal conspiracy netted more than $1.2 million from U.S. victims.
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Key Facts
- State: District of Columbia
- Category: Cybercrime|Fraud & Financial Crimes|White Collar Crime|Organized Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release ↗
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