A resident of the South Shore of Montreal who allegedly played a central role in a vast fraud of more than $12 million targeting consumers has just been handcuffed at the request of American authorities, who are now requesting his extradition.
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“He was a key participant from the start of the fraudulent scheme in 2015. He gave instructions to extract money from the victims’ bank accounts, he analyzed the success rate and the performance of the fraud to improve it,” say US prosecutors in court documents targeting Steven Kennedy.
Kennedy, a resident of Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville who also goes by the name Steven Morgan, had been wanted since May by the California courts in connection with a vast fraud affecting more than 100,000 victims in the United States.
Siphoned accounts
According to evidence collected by investigators from the United States Postal Inspection Service, the group specialized, among other things, in the creation of websites offering various services, for example data storage on the Internet.
This would have allowed him to obtain consumers’ banking data. Accomplices then withdrew money from the accounts, in the amount of a few dozen dollars, obviously in the hope that the victim would not notice.
Some of them were charged fraudulently in one take, while others were less lucky.
These operations were obviously very profitable, since in 18 months, an alleged accomplice managed to pocket $560,000 thanks to a single site, named Dollar Web Sales.
The Dollar Web Sales website in 2018.
Screenshot taken from the Wayback Machine website
“This was a sophisticated scheme that would have generated millions of dollars by stealing consumers’ hard-earned savings,” said US Attorney Brian M. Boyton, during the indictment of 14 individuals, including Canadians.
Run
But of the group, several were on the run, including Kennedy. The 54-year-old Quebecer, however, was handcuffed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at the beginning of the week. He appeared at the Montreal courthouse immediately afterwards to begin the extradition process to California.
If convicted there, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
Three months ago, the RCMP arrested Sayyid Shahzanish Quadri, a 46-year-old South Shore resident, just before he flew to Qatar.
Another wanted Quebecer, Guy Benoit, aged 68, is currently in Cyprus.