Internet Fraud Casebook

Chapter 37. The Business Of Making Money

BILL MALONEY

Jerry Taylor lived a charmed life. He grew up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. He was a standout in high-school lacrosse, went to a good college and was making a good living as a stockbroker. In his mid-twenties he settled down and married a local girl and they had two kids — a boy and a girl. They lived in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, in a nice Northeast community. Life was good. That was until the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) took away his license for cheating and then not paying his fine.

What's a man to do when life kicks him like that? Jerry knew exactly what to do — keep on cheating. The whole NASD thing was just a big misunderstanding and if they weren't going to see it that way, he'd have to go on his own. First things first, move out West where no one knew him. He knew that with his experience in the financial arena, it would be no problem to buy a house out West, refinance it, inflate the price a few times and then move on and walk away from the loan. Jerry also knew he needed some operating capital, and forming fake companies would pay for the leases on the brand-new cars he and his wife drove. After all, a man needs to get around. He also figured that fake companies would be the perfect capital-generating projects. He could lease office equipment and apply for business loans to misappropriate for his personal use. Even better than creating fake companies was impersonating Fortune ...