Woman Lying As Pregnant, Frauds Adoptive Couples

A malicious scheme was in circulation that tried to capture money and property from people desiring to adopt a child. A young woman has been proved guilty of committing mail fraud and wiring fraud in relation to the scheme. The woman from Alice, Texas faces sentence to jail and has to pay compensation in thousands.

Belinda Ramirez duped eight families over the World Wide Web. She promised to all of them that they were allowed to adopt the child she is going to give birth to in return of some monetary assistance. However, the reality was that she wasn't even pregnant. In the end she was held for one instance of mail hoax and another of wire hoax.

While building these contacts Ramirez used various references. She produced description of the baby's father and discussed her pregnancy in detail. She even sent photographs and gave reasons for selecting those families to adopt her still to be born child. Most of the couples that Ramirez contacted had posted their profiles on the Internet.

She further cheated some families by asking them to send in money in addition to gift cards so that Ramirez could purchase certain items that she posed to be requisite during pregnancy that included medicinal expenses. This convinced many families who deposited money ranging between $150 and $500. Many would ship new gift-cards along with other things to Ramirez's residence.

In one particular instance, an adoptive family preparing itself responded to Ramirez's instructions and transferred nearly $1,762 in mailgrams accompanied with a new cell phone. During all these interactions, Ramirez was not pregnant.

The families Ramirez contacted were from New York, Florida, Ohio, California, Colorado and Washington. When authorities found empty packages in Ramirez's home that were sent via U.S. mail or Fedex from prospective adoptive families but did not find the expected physical state of Ramirez, they arrested her in May 2006.

In October that year Ramirez admitted to have committed wire fraud and mail fraud following which she was sentenced on January 24, 2007 to two-year jail detention. The court also ordered her to pay $20,000 as compensation to monetary damages caused to the victims.

Related article: Woman Confesses Stealing Privacy of Linkin Park Singer in Cyber Space

» SPAMfighter News - 1/29/2007