Five of six alleged members of an international criminal
conspiracy were arrested and appeared before the Court in Dallas, Texas on
charges related to their alleged roles in an international fraud scheme that
has used counterfeit driver’s licenses and counterfeit money orders to obtain
monies from victim bank accounts around the United States.
The arrests and charges were announced by Acting Assistant
Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division;
U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox for the Northern District of Texas; and Inspector
in Charge Regina Faulkerson of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Criminal
Investigations Group.
John Lewis Davis II, 43, and Rasheed Wriden, 34, both of
Dallas; Valandus Javon Gibson, 28 of Chicago, Illinois; Ralph Deon Taylor, 47,
of Long Beach, California; and Craig Allen, 70, of Phoenix, Arizona, were all
charged in a 14-count indictment unsealed on Thursday.
Davis, Gibson, Taylor, Allen, and Wriden are charged with
conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, and conspiracy to launder
monetary instruments.
Davis, Gibson, and Allen, are charged with conspiracy to
commit bank fraud.
Davis, Allen, and Wriden are charged with mail fraud.
Davis, Taylor, Allen, and Wriden are charged with possession
and transmission of counterfeit money orders.
Davis, Taylor, and Allen are charged with transferring
counterfeit driver’s licenses.
The indictment alleges that from about April 2013 to
December 2017, the defendants conspired with each other and individuals in
other countries including Nigeria to obtain money through various acts of
fraud. This included posting misleading
advertisements of detailed descriptions of job opportunities, such as for
mystery shopper positions, that were not valid job opportunities. The defendants are alleged to have conspired
to pose as employers of these fraudulent job opportunities to lure victims, who
resided throughout the United States and Canada.
The defendants are alleged to have conspired to obtain
counterfeited driver’s licenses and money orders, which were shipped into the
United States. The counterfeited money
orders were shipped to co-conspirators, who then mailed them to unwitting
victims who were under the mistaken belief that they were fulfilling the job
duties of mystery shopper positions. The
victims were instructed to deposit the counterfeit money orders and securities,
mailed as payment for the mystery shopper jobs, into personal bank accounts and
send a portion of the monies via money transfer businesses, to individuals
known and unknown in the United States and elsewhere. After the unwitting victims cashed the
counterfeited money orders and wired money to co-conspirators, the
co-conspirators are alleged to have retrieved the wire transfers with the use
of a counterfeited driver’s license.
According to the indictment, the purpose of the conspiracy
was to fraudulently obtain monies from counterfeited U.S. Postal money orders
and counterfeit checks, by sending and receiving them through the U.S. Postal
Service and commercial carriers to other individuals, who would then negotiate
the money orders and checks and wire the funds to the defendants using money
service businesses.
The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and
the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt in a court of law.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection
Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security
Investigations and the Rowlett Police Department.
The case was prosecuted by Trial Attorney Leshia Lee-Dixon
of the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section and Assistant U.S.
Attorney David Jarvis from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District
of Texas – Dallas Division.
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