A resident of Australia and Russia has been sentenced to 98 months in prison for a multi-million dollar mobile consumer fraud scheme.
Eugini Tsvetnenko, also known as Zhenya, reportedly defrauded mobile phone users through monthly fees obtained from auto-subscribed texts about trivia, gossip and horoscopes without their knowledge or consent, according to a June 28 Department of Justice news release. He entered a guilty plea for his part in the scheme Feb. 18.
“Eugeni Tsvetnenko and his co-defendants made a fortune by fraudulently charging their customers for text messages they didn’t need or approve, in a practice called ‘auto-subscribing,’ then laundering the proceeds through shell companies,” Southern District of New York's U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in the release. “Tsvetnenko is paying a steep price for his mobile scam, as he has already paid back over $15 million in forfeiture, and will now spend 98 months in federal prison.”
Mobile phone users were billed $9.99 per month for the unsolicited messages which lead Tsvetnenko and his co-conspirators to scam more than $41 million and earn more than $20 million for themselves, the release reported. In conjunction with the fraud, the defendant personally made about $15.4 million, which he gave back before being sentenced.
