A Las Vegas man bilked millions of dollars from more than 375,000 victims across the country by creating and depositing checks without their authorization, the office of the U.S. attorney for the district of Nevada announced today.
Gareth David Long, a 40-year-old British native, today pleaded guilty to one count each of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in federal court in Las Vegas, officials said. He is slated to be sentenced in February.
The scheme ran during the first half of 2013.
Prior to that — during a five-year period — Long operated a third-party processing company based in Las Vegas that allowed him to remotely process payments to his merchant clients, officials said.
He mined the financial information of the victims who’d made authorized payments during that period and subsequently began to illegally charge the clients to enrich himself, officials said. He’d also acquired information from additional victims by purchasing “lead lists,” officials said.
“Long did not have authorization to charge any of these victims’ accounts,” officials said in a news release.
When the victims called to dispute the charges, Long had his staff lie to them, saying that they’d authorized the payments through payday loan applications, officials said.
Long’s scheme created and deposited more than 750,000 electronic checks, totaling more than $22 million, officials. About half of the transactions were reversed by the victims’ banks, but “Long nevertheless succeeded in stealing approximately $11 million,” officials said.
Enough funds to buy three airplanes, vehicles and property, including a ranch in Texas, officials said. When he was busted in 2016, Long had about $3 million in bank accounts.