Detroit Woman Charged in Identity Theft of at Least $200,000
By Detroit Free Press
Jul. 20–Between September 2006 and this past March, a Detroit woman participated in a scheme that placed bogus charges of $12.95 each on the credit cards of 75 to 100 people daily, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox charged Thursday.
Krystal Owens, 40, of Detroit was arraigned Thursday on three counts of identity theft and one count of conspiring to commit identity theft for allegedly bilking people out of at least $200,000, Cox said. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison for each count of identity theft and/or a fine of up to $10,000.
But a Free Press review conducted late Thursday and early today of the particulars of the case raises questions about whether Owens was a willing or unwitting participant in a potential online version of a get-rich-quick scheme. The attorney general’s office was not available for comment on this issue early this morning.
Owens was charged after more than 130 people nationwide filed complaints since January with the Michigan Attorney General’s Office that their credit cards were billed $12.95 without their permission by K.A.T.O. Technology, LLC, or K.A.M.K. Technology, LLC.
Cox said an investigation by his office found that Owens established the corporations and bank accounts during the summer of 2006. The attorney general’s office alleges that the corporations and business accounts were bogus and were part of a conspiracy between Owens and Tomas Lasinkas of P.O.V. Webdesign Solutions. No further information about Lasinkas or P.O.V. is contained in the press release announcing the charges against Owens, and there is no indication from the release if Lasinkas was also charged.
However, the attorney general’s office alleges in the release that Lasinkas made the unauthorized charges to credit card accounts and that Owens regularly wired the illegal proceeds from those charges to Lasinkas’ bank accounts in Bulgaria.
Over a six-month period, Cox said in the release, Lasinkas and Owens accumulated about $200,000.
A Free Press review found that P.O.V. Webdesign, citing expanding business, placed an online job opening on the Web for “a partner willing and able to perform as a project assistant” in a “partnership program” with the company. Details are contained on a Web site page cached, or stored, May 8 on Google.com’s search engine. Click here to see that cached page.
That Web page contains a letter to interested applicants for the project assistant position, purportedly from Povilas Baranauskas, president of P.O.V. Webdesign. It also provides a question and answer section on how the arrangement works. Any further questions that applicants might have about how the venture works are referred to an email address bearing the name of Tomas Lasinkas. No mailing address is provided, though a fax number is offered that contains a 208 area code, which covers central and southern Idaho.
There was no immediate response to an e-mail sent to Tomas Lasinkas early this morning seeking comment.
Participants in this venture are offered the opportunity to “create a website in the name of your business, which will be selling [P.O.V.] products online.” In return, as president of the subsidiary company, Baranauskas states that participants are entitled to 10 percent commission on gross sales realized from their subsidiary Web site.
“No knowledge of information technologies” and “no special talent is needed from you,” he emphasizes.
The firm’s offer, he states, is “for those busy people who wish to work full time in some other company and at the same time have a side income which will require minimum of time and effort … You will never have to advertise or sell anything.”
The P.O.V. Web page gives specific instructions to project assistant candidates on what steps they have to undertake to enter into this business partnership, including forming an S-corporation or a limited liability company (LLC) — like the firms Owens is accused of forming — and registering with the state.
Applicants are told to then open a business account in a bank “for the purpose of receiving payments from the people who will order web design services from your website. The compulsory condition with regard to the account is that it is provided with online access service. Your commission will be also available in this account.”
Baranauskas further instructs applicants to open a separate merchant account in a bank that is unlike the business account because it is “set up to process customers’ payments, but you cannot accumulate funds on it for it is only a transit account … All transactions will be processed by merchant account to be finally accumulated on business account.”
The next step in “our teamwork,” he tells applicants, is creation of the applicant’s subsidiary Web site for selling Web design services. “This work will be done soley by P.O.V. Webdesign Solutions, Inc. because it will require definite skills and experience in programming and web-design,” Baranauskas states.
After the above-mentioned steps are fulfilled, Baranauskas states that P.O.V.’s specialists “will commence a large-scale advertising campaign of your Internet shop. Our experience has proved that already the next day brings in the results. The daily volume of sales averages 50-70 units of product, each of them costing $10-50 (average $30).”
The charges Owens is accused of fall in that range — $12.50 each.
Baranauskas states that the approximate gross daily income from an applicant’s affiliate website “equals $1500 at the beginning and up to $2000 when the site is fully promoted. According to the provisions of your Employment Agreement you will be entitled to a 10 percent commission on gross sales of units of product via your affiliate website, consequently, your net daily profit will be in the vicinity of $150-200. This compensation will be available on your business checking account. Your estimated personal monthly income will accordingly be in range of $4500-$6000.”
Once the launched project gets going and “acquires its final desired shape,” Baranauskas states the applicant’s major responsibility “will be managing [the] business account (withdrawing your 10 percent commission and transferring the balance to P.O.V. Webdesign Solutions, Inc.”
Owens is accused by Cox of sending the proceeds from the unauthorized credit card charges to a bank account belonging to Lasinkas in Bulgaria.
Concerns about P.O.V. Webdesign were expressed as early as April 2006 on forums at a Website called www.scam.com, which monitors citizens complaints and questions about questionable Internet offers. In January — the same time that Cox said complaints about Owens’ companies began pouring into his office — two separate e-mail posters stated they had joined P.O.V. as affiliate partners and had started getting complaints about people’s credit cards being charged without their knowledge.
“You have been warned. Do not go with them,” one affiliate posted to others wondering whether to join P.O.V.
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