Financial Fraud: Lauren Montillo Pleaded Guilty To Conspiracy To Commit Wire Fraud And To Tax Evasion

<h2>Owings Mills Woman Pleads Guilty to Obtaining Over &dollar;4&period;3 Million in an Advance Fee Fraud Scheme and to Evading Taxes on that Income<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>Baltimore&comma; Maryland – Late on November 29&comma; 2018—a few days before she was scheduled to go to trial—Lauren Montillo&comma; age 47&comma; of Owings Mills&comma; Maryland&comma; pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to tax evasion&period; According to her plea agreement&comma; from 2010 through 2015&comma; Montillo and her co-conspirators sought at least &dollar;8&period;7 million in advance fees from foreign and United States victims&comma; purporting to offer access to exotic bank financial instruments&period; Victims paid &dollar;4&comma;342&comma;540 in advance fees into Hong Kong bank accounts or attorney escrow accounts and received nothing in return&period; For <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;fraudswatch&period;com&sol;announcement-on-tax-charges-committed-in-this-year-2018-by-fbi&sol;amp&sol;">tax years<&sol;a> 2012 through 2014&comma; Montillo reported no income other than &dollar;100&comma; evading a substantial amount of income taxes&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"mh-content-ad"><script async src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;pagead2&period;googlesyndication&period;com&sol;pagead&sol;js&sol;adsbygoogle&period;js&quest;client&equals;ca-pub-9162800720558968"&NewLine; crossorigin&equals;"anonymous"><&sol;script>&NewLine;<ins class&equals;"adsbygoogle"&NewLine; style&equals;"display&colon;block&semi; text-align&colon;center&semi;"&NewLine; data-ad-layout&equals;"in-article"&NewLine; data-ad-format&equals;"fluid"&NewLine; data-ad-client&equals;"ca-pub-9162800720558968"&NewLine; data-ad-slot&equals;"1081854981"><&sol;ins>&NewLine;<script>&NewLine; &lpar;adsbygoogle &equals; window&period;adsbygoogle &vert;&vert; &lbrack;&rsqb;&rpar;&period;push&lpar;&lbrace;&rcub;&rpar;&semi;&NewLine;<&sol;script><&sol;div>&NewLine;<p>The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert K&period; Hur&semi; Special Agent in Charge Gordon B&period; Johnson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation&comma; Baltimore Field Office&semi; and Special Agent in Charge Kelly R&period; Jackson of the Internal Revenue Service &&num;8211&semi; Criminal Investigation&comma; Washington&comma; D&period;C&period; Field Office&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Montillo and her co-conspirators created shell companies&comma; with associated websites&comma; email addresses&comma; and bank accounts&comma; which they used to perpetrate the fraud&period; Specifically&comma; in February 2010&comma; Montillo opened an account with GoDaddy&comma; which provides web-hosting services&period; From 2010 to 2015&comma; Montillo and other co-conspirators used GoDaddy to host websites for shell companies such as MLL Holdings&comma; The Bussola Group&comma; Worldwide Escrow Holdings&comma; Ltd&period;&comma; International Insurance of Nebraska&comma; Atlas Investment Bancorp&comma; Entirety Capital&comma; GPF Global&comma; and Atlas-Gayle Trust&period; Each of these shell companies had associated email addresses&comma; which Montillo and her co-conspirators opened and used&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Also in 2010&comma; Montillo&&num;8217&semi;s father incorporated &&num;8220&semi;Worldwide Escrow Holdings Limited&&num;8221&semi; &lpar;&&num;8220&semi;Worldwide Escrow&&num;8221&semi;&rpar; in Hong Kong and opened a bank account for Worldwide Escrow at the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank &lpar;HSBC&rpar;&comma; Hong Kong with Montillo as a signatory&period; Montillo’s father resigned from the company in April 2011&period; In March 2011&comma; Montillo and a co-conspirator opened two more bank accounts in Hong Kong&comma; the MLL Holdings and the Skywall bank accounts&comma; also at HSBC&period; Montillo and her co-conspirators had on-line access to the Hong Kong bank accounts so that they could conduct banking transactions over the internet&period; In 2012&comma; Montillo’s father also opened an escrow account in the name of his mother-in-law&comma; a licensed attorney in Maryland who had stopped practicing law in approximately 2007&period; She was not aware that the escrow account had been opened in her name&period; The conspirators directed victims to wire-transfer their advance fees into the HSBC&comma; Hong Kong bank accounts or the attorney escrow account&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Montillo’s co-conspirator&comma; Eric Becker&comma; was her former fiancé&period; Becker developed&comma; and Montillo edited&comma; websites for the various phony businesses&comma; which purported to offer access to <a class&equals;"wpil&lowbar;keyword&lowbar;link" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;fraudswatch&period;com&sol;tag&sol;financial-fraud&sol;amp&sol;" title&equals;"financial" data-wpil-keyword-link&equals;"linked" data-wpil-monitor-id&equals;"886">financial<&sol;a> instruments&comma; such as standby letters of credit&comma; bank guarantees&comma; bonds&comma; or private placement trading platforms&period; Montillo and her co-conspirators had no access to any financial instruments&period; For example&comma; Montillo and several co-conspirators obtained advance fee payments from a victim that would purportedly gain access to a private placement trading platform&period; The co-conspirators persuaded the victim&comma; through several broker intermediaries&comma; to send &dollar;1&period;7 million to a BB&amp&semi;T bank account in Florida&period; BB&amp&semi;T returned the funds to the victim&period; The victim&comma; a Mexican national&comma; was told that the funds were returned because the window had closed on the investment opportunity&period; Co-conspirators&comma; including Montillo&comma; then informed the victim&comma; through his broker&comma; that they could offer him a private placement trading platform in which he would receive profits and a charitable organization would use its portion of the profits to invest in its projects&period; The conspirators directed the victim to send his money to the Worldwide Escrow account at HSBC&comma; Hong Kong&period; On May 8&comma; 2012&comma; the victim used his own and his family&&num;8217&semi;s funds to send &dollar;3&comma;099&comma;990 to the Worldwide Escrow Holdings account&period; The conspirators&comma; including Montillo&comma; moved over &dollar;2 million of the funds to a bank account opened at Choice Bank in Belize&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>To conceal the fraud and to reassure the victim and his brokers&comma; co-conspirators including Montillo&comma; created an insurance policy for a non-existent insurance company called International Insurance of Nebraska&comma; which was back-stopped with a website hosted through Montillo&&num;8217&semi;s GoDaddy account&period; The insurance policy purported to show that the victim&&num;8217&semi;s investment funds would not be at risk because they were fully insured&period; In addition&comma; co-conspirators&comma; including Montillo&comma; used her GoDaddy account to host the website wweholdingsltd&period;com to add an air of legitimacy to Worldwide Escrow Both the insurance company and the private placement trading platform were bogus&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Over the next several years&comma; Montillo and her co-conspirators continued with the advance fee scheme&period; The scheme had both foreign and U&period;S&period; victims&period; To protect her identity&comma; Montillo frequently used the name &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Kati Conti” in the frauds and used a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;burner phone” so that after the scam was concluded&comma; she could &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;go dark” and stop communicating with the victims&period; In all&comma; the scheme sought at least &dollar;8&period;7 million from victims&comma; and actually obtained &dollar;4&comma;342&comma;540&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For tax years 2012 through 2014&comma; Montillo filed personal tax returns showing no income or &dollar;100 in income&comma; and thus no income tax was owed&period; Montillo admitted that she was the signatory on bank accounts in the names of limited liability corporations into which victims&&num;8217&semi; funds were wire transferred from Hong Kong&comma; Choice Bank in Belize&comma; the attorney escrow account&comma; and other accounts controlled by co-conspirators&period; Montillo used the victim funds transferred to the limited liability accounts for living expenses&period; Montillo had no accounts in her own name&period; Montillo admitted that by failing to report her income for 2012 through 2014 to the Internal Revenue Service&comma; she evaded a substantial amount of income taxes&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As part of her plea agreement&comma; Montillo will be required to forfeit a money judgment in the amount of &dollar;849&comma;993&period;12 and to pay restitution in the full amount of the loss&comma; which is at least &dollar;4&comma;342&comma;540&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Montillo faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the wire fraud conspiracy and 5 years in prison for tax evasion&period; U&period;S&period; District Judge Richard D&period; Bennett has scheduled sentencing for April 12&comma; 2019 at 10 a&period;m&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Three defendants were charged in a related case in the Western District of Texas&comma; James Edward Cox&comma; Kelly Ray Coronado&comma; and Gordon Richard Moscowitz&period; They have pled guilty to wire fraud conspiracy &lpar;Cox and Coronado&rpar; and money-laundering conspiracy &lpar;Moskowitz&rpar; and are scheduled for sentencing on February 6&comma; 2019&period; Becker was indicted with Montillo but has since died&period; Montillo’s father died in 2016&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>United States Attorney Robert K&period; Hur commended the FBI and IRS-CI for their work in the investigation&period; Mr&period; Hur thanked Assistant U&period;S&period; Attorneys Joyce K&period; McDonald and Sean Delaney&comma; who are prosecuting the case&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;justice&period;gov&sol;usao-md&sol;pr&sol;owings-mills-woman-pleads-guilty-obtaining-over-43-million-advance-fee-fraud-scheme-and">Original PressReleases&&num;8230&semi;<&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;

Financial FraudInvestment FraudTax Fraud