It was a case that was all about the numbers. In the end, the number with the most meaning to Nilton Rossoni was 68 — the number of months he’ll be spending in federal prison.
Rossoni conducted more than 5,500 fraudulent auctions on eBay. He pulled off his scheme by using at least 260 bogus accounts, at least 59 mail drops, six names, four bogus passports and three banks.
Rossoni, 50, formerly of Sunny Isles and Hallandale Beach, Fla., collected $717,000 in the scheme between October 2003 and June 2008. The bizarre fraud was smashed by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service
Winning bidders were notified via e-mail to send a check or money order payable either to Celso Ferreira, Jorge Carlos, Joao Santos, Lourival Philipps, Prime Hill Inc. or Primo Hill Inc. Buyers were instructed to send payments via U.S. Mail to specific addresses, all of which proved to be mail drops.
“Elaborate” barely described the scheme.
“Rossoni rented at least 59 separate private mail boxes at various Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies (CMRA), including The UPS Store, Mail Boxes Etc., and Pak-Mail, using fraudulent Brazilian passports in the names of Celso Ferreira, Jorge Carlos, Joao Santos, or Lourival Philipps as identification,” prosecutors said. “After receiving payment, Rossoni deposited the money into various bank accounts he opened at Bank of America, Citibank, and SunTrust Bank, under these aliases.”
As part of the scheme, “Rossoni registered and established hundreds of eBay accounts and used various names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses on those accounts to post items for auction,” prosecutors said.
He then purchased inexpensive items from himself and posted positive “feedback†on the transaction, prosecutors said.
Confident that Rossoni was an honest broker because of his positive feedback, buyers lined up to be fleeced, prosecutors said. Rossoni sold them textbooks, computer flash drives, rotisserie grills, tools, sporting equipment, DVD collections, airline tickets, saddles, saddlebags, designer luggage, appliances, metal detectors and more.
Rather than shipping items, he kept the money.