4-Year Sentence for Mass Mail Scam

MANHATTAN (CN) - A Toronto man was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison Wednesday for bilking 25,000 businesses of hundreds of thousands of dollars in a fake invoice mass-mail scam. Emanuel Medeiros aka Joseph Garcia ran his scam under the names Boom Global Media and Bradstreet International.

Medeiros, 48, of Toronto, claimed to offer "business to business guides" for Internet advertising. "But instead of providing the service as claimed, Medeiros simply sent out bills to thousands of companies," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. "The bills were styled as 'renewal' notices, even though the recipients had not previously purchased any services from Medeiros' companies. These bills, most of which charged $297.83, also threatened to charge a penalty of 2% per month for supposedly 'overdue accounts,' or, on occasion, to report the recipient to a collection agency on failure to pay. While many companies who received these 'Renewal' notices simply ignored

them, approximately 25,000 companies were in fact duped into paying."

Medeiros also was ordered to forfeit $300,000. He has been in custody since he was arrested in June 2008 . He pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

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