A California man confirmed his role in a large-scale and long-running Internet-based fraud scheme that allowed him and other fraudsters to siphon roughly $50 million from dozens of investors over eight years, between 2012 to October 2020.
56-year-old Allen Giltman and his co-conspirators created fraudulent sites advertising various investment opportunities (primarily the purchase of certificates of deposit) to solicit money from investors via the internet.
“The Fraudulent Websites advertised higher than average rates of return on the CDs, which enhanced the attractiveness of the investment opportunities to potential victims,” according to court documents.
“At times, the fraudulent websites were designed to closely resemble websites being operated by actual, well-known, and publicly reputable financial institutions; at other times, the fraudulent websites were designed to resemble legitimate-seeming financial institutions that did not exist.”
They promoted the fraudulent investment sites via ads on Google and Microsoft Bing search results for searches, including phrases such as “best CD rates” or “highest cd rates.”
70 victims baited using 150 scam sites
In conversations with victims who reached out for investment opportunities, the fraudsters impersonated FINRA broker-dealers claiming to be employed by the financial institutions they spoofed on the scam sites.
During their fraud schemes, they used various means to hide their true identities, including virtual private…
