Father-Daughter Duo Carried out Boiler-room Fraud Worth $70 Million

On March 13, 2008, the US authorities informed the London Police Department about the fake online shares scam involving a huge amount of $70 Million (£35 Million). The American daughter and father, Zibiah Joy Gunter (25), and Paul Robert Gunter (58), were charged for the crime in Tampa, Florida.

The British officials reported that the suspects carried on a "boiler-room fraud" for selling the shares in almost fifty shell companies. According to the complaint lodged in 2005, they stole the identities of non-existent, publicly traded companies. They even sold the invalid shares and stocks to the residents of the UK with the help of highly aggressive and deceptive sales techniques.

Boiler room is the temporary space present on the Internet sites. Through this boiler room, the fake stock brokers contact the clients to sell the bogus shares to them in non-existent or dormant companies. They get the information about the client from the records at Companies House, London. This is the latest online criminal activity carried on by the cyber criminals.

Robert Wishart, Deputy Chief Inspector of the City of London police's money laundering unit, informed that investigations are still going on in the boiler room fraud and about fifteen hundred Britons, mostly elders, have lost their money, as per the statement published on Mach 14, 2008 by guardian.co.uk.

If the team of the US father and daughter are found guilty for the scam, they will be punished for more than 100 years in jail with the fine worth double of $70 Million which they have allegedly swirled from thousands of people.

Moreover, in twenty-first century, boiler room fraud is not the single technology to be used by criminals. There are many new and sophisticated technologies which give a fraudster opportunity to access people's bank account details through Internet. In phishing scams, the criminal sends an e-mail to the victim from banks asking for their account details for verification and then victim is directed to the bank site. After this, the criminal captures the bank account details and the password entered by the victim.

Related article: Future of Web Security Appears Gloomy

» SPAMfighter News - 3/22/2008