News

The Cornerstone Report

Safeguarding America Through Financial Investigations

June 2009 - Table of Contents

New Trends: Combining Internet and Money Transfers

One of the trends the Netherlands has seen is the combination of the unlimited possibilities of using the Internet for fraud schemes. The underlying predicate offense is a very simple fraud scheme: products are sold through the Internet, money is collected and in the end the purchased goods are never delivered. The attractiveness of this scheme is that both Internet and money transfers are anonymous and it is a “clean” criminal offense. It enables the criminals to leave very little information compared to the use of bank accounts and high contact crimes, like human trafficking and drugs. Most cases are still under investigation.

The typical scheme structure is as follows:

A fictitious product is posted for sale on a legitimate online auction site, such as eBay. Usually the focus is on high price articles, such as computers or watches, or high-value collector’s items. The product must be paid for before it is shipped to the buyer. The purchase is never shipped, so the buyer never receives the product.

Underlying this simple scheme the following actions take place:

• Fraudster had Romanian nationality;
• Buyer sends a money transfer to the Netherlands;
• Cash withdrawal in the Netherlands;
• Victims are in another country, like U.S. or Canada;
• Use of false identity (identical address, but various individuals); and
• Use of false ID cards (identical ID cards, various ID card holders).