Nabbed: Indiana Couple Admits to Con Amazon Out of $1.2 Million in Electronics

A married couple from Indiana has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison by the U.S. District Court on Monday, for stealing eCommerce giant, Amazon’s $1.2 million worth of goods. It is believed that the scam was mostly done in consumer electronics.

The mastermind behind the fraudulent act was, Erin and Leah Jeanette Finan. After several years of penetrating into Amazon’s online platform, finally, the con ended when the couple pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud and money laundering charges. They both scammed around 2,700 tech gadgets on Amazon.com. According to the justice department, Erin was given a 71 months jail term and Leah was sentenced to 68 months.

It all started in 2014 when the Finans started creating hundred of fake Amazon accounts to order products. In a span of two years, the couple ordered more than 2,700 electronic gadgets including GoPro digital cameras, Microsoft Xbox, Apple MacBooks, Microsoft Surface tablets and many more.

The fraud couple would report the company that they have received damaged or tampered products. According to Amazon, customer service policy allows the customers to receive a replacement before they return a broken item. So, they both took advantage of it and carried out their mission to scam products.  The Finans got away with their actions just because they received the replacement products before returning the supposedly damaged goods by using their long list of false identities to simply abandon each fake account before their fraud was discovered.