A Man from Arizona sentenced for his role in the “phishing” scam impacting the Alabama residents

Iosif Florea, aged 42 from Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday (i.e. on February 13, 2019) was sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in the federal prison due to his role in the "phishing" scam which impacted the Alabama residents. Louis V. Franklin, Sr., United States Attorney; Steve Marshall, Alabama Attorney General; and Charge James Jewell, the FBI Special Agent, have made this announcement. After his 2 years and 8 months prison sentence, Florea will be subject to 3yrs. of supervised release. In addition, he has been also ordered to make a payment of $17,786.50 in restitution.

Florea pleaded guilty previously to the charges of aggravated identity theft and bank fraud following his indictment last year (i.e. on May 2018) by federal grand jury.

The phishing scams use malicious websites or email for soliciting the personal information after posing as trustworthy organization. Evidence confirms that the man from Arizona has been involved in a phishing scheme, which happened in March 2015 and June 2015. Text messages have been sent to around 500,000 Alabama residents during that time.

"The messages contained a link to a website that claimed to be that of the Alabama State Employees Credit Union (ASECU) and requested the recipients use the link to verify account information," stated a release from DoJ (Department of Justice). However, that link in the messages actually took recipients to a fake website where they are prompted to enter the sensitive account information, like their names, card's expiration date, debit card numbers, security code on the reverse of the card, and their PIN (Personal Identification Numbers). All these information were then loaded in the blank cards.

In March 2015 and June 2015, videos of Florea were found from Phoenix city in Arizona, Las Vegas city in Nevada, and Los Angeles city in California. In these videos, he was withdrawing money from ATMs by using cards having the stolen information from around 30 different accounts.

"It is important that the public be aware of these types of scams, and immediately report any suspicious account activity to their bank or credit union," stated Louis Franklin, United States Attorney. Louis Franklin further added that when the fraud department of bank has been alerted quickly, then they can take various actions to limit losses of their customers and also assist the law enforcement for identifying the thieves. Franklin also stated that "the public should also know that my office will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to protect their identities from these types of schemes".

» SPAMfighter News - 2/28/2019