A grand jury has indicted 91 people and corporations in a large international bank fraud scam.
Middlesex County Courthouse, in New Brunswick NEW BRUNSWICK -- A grand jury on Wednesday charged 47 people and 44 companies in a sprawling international bank fraud ring that operated a "multimillion-dollar scheme to steal from banks and corporations," the county Prosecutor's office announced in a statement on Thursday.
Carlos Alcantara, 26, of South Amboy, and various associates, allegedly created companies to dupe "unwitting companies and individuals" into wiring "significant sums of money to newly-established, but fraudulent corporate bank accounts," the statement said.
Alcantara and his associates allegedly obtained more than $2 million in the scam and fraudulently wired more than $15 million from victims' accounts, according to the Prosecutor's Office.
The scheme, the statement said, allegedly involved the targeting of companies and individuals through emails "purportedly sent by co-workers in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Florida. The emails were tacitly designed with a "sense of urgency" to "persuade the recipients to act quickly and proceed with the transactions without question." The messages would cite a previous invoice or ongoing project to "lend credibility to the scam."
It's not clear for what purpose they were soliciting money.
The scam duped recipients into losing amounts ranging from $50,000 to $450,000, according to the statement.
The defendants were indicted on charges including racketeering, conspiracy, financial facilitation of criminal activity, promoting organized street crime, theft by deception, receiving stolen property, misconduct by a corporate official, falsifying records, serving as a leader of organized crime.
The defendants were indicted after an investigation by federal, county, and municipal law enforcement agencies initiated by the Perth Amboy Police Department after a routine traffic stop.
The investigation was jointly conducted by the county Prosecutor's Office, the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Newark Division, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Marshals New York-New Jersey Regional Division of Taxation, the Middlesex County Sheriff's Department, and eight municipal police departments.
Assisting in the investigation were police departments in Carteret, Edison, Linden, South Amboy, South Plainfield, Spotswood, and Woodbridge.
The investigation is active and is continuing. Anyone with information can contact Det. Ryan Tighe, of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office's Special Investigations Unit, at 732-745-3300; or Special Agent Brad Greenberg, of the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Terence S. Opiola, at 973-776-5500.
Spencer Kent may be reached at skent@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerMKent. Find the Find NJ.com on Facebook.