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Ex-Verizon employee charged with prepaid fraud

BEDMINSTER, N.J.-A former Verizon Wireless customer service representative was indicted on 10 fraud and money laundering charges that he stole more than $20 million of prepaid card activation numbers and sold them on his own between November 2002 and March of this year.

The indictment, which was filed in by a federal grand jury in California, notes that Timothy Mattos copied the 15-digit numbers and sold them to Verizon Wireless’ prepaid customers while working for the carrier between November 2002 and November 2003 and continued accessing a Web site to procure additional numbers for several months after he left the company.

Nine of the charges related to fraud and money laundering carry maximum prison penalties totaling more than 125 years with a 10th charge seeking to seize any property Mattos might have purchased with the money.

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