SAN FRANCISCO- Roy Lin and John Lin were sentenced yesterday to 30 months and 20 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in operating a fraudulent billing scheme to place charges on customers’ telephone bills, United States Attorney Melinda Haag announced.
Roy Lin pleaded guilty on Dec. 11, 2012, to one count of mail fraud and one count of money laundering. His brother, John Lin, pleaded guilty on Dec. 11, 2012, to one count of mail fraud. According to the plea agreements, the Lins admitted to running INC21.com Corporation (INC21), including its affiliates GlobalYP, JumPage Solutions, and GoFaxer. INC21, based in San Francisco, provided Internet-based services and charged consumers for the services on the consumers’ local telephone bills, among other methods.
The Lin brothers fraudulently obtained access to bill for services on the consumers’ telephone bills by making false representations on applications. These applications were submitted to telephone companies in order to be approved to bill consumers in this manner. At sentencing, the Court found that through this scheme, INC21 and its affiliates collected revenues of between $2,500,000 and $7,000,000 from more than 250 victims.
Roy Lin, 43, and John Lin, 41, both of San Francisco, were indicted on March 27, 2012. Roy Lin and John Lin were each charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud, six counts of mail fraud, and three counts of money laundering.
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge William H. Alsup. Roy Lin was sentenced to 30 months in prison for one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 and 18 U.S.C. § 1957, respectively. John Lin was sentenced to 20 months in prison for wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341. Judge Alsup sentenced both defendants to a 3 year period of supervised release to follow their prison terms. Each defendant will begin serving his sentence on Sept. 3, 2013.
Kyle Waldinger and Hallie Hoffman are the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who are prosecuting the case with the assistance of Rayneisha Booth and Elizabeth Garcia. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the United States Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
