Romanian man sentenced in KY for money laundering in fake vacation rental scheme
A Romanian man has been sentenced to four years in prison for creating online postings of fake vacation rentals, scamming at least 14,000 people, and routing fraudulent money through Central Kentucky, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Liviu Mihai Dumitru, 44, was sentenced to 48 months in prison on Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell in Lexington for conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to a Department of Justice press release.
Dumitru created and ran a software platform from Jan. 2016 to Sept. 2023 that allowed users to commit online auction fraud and vacation rental fraud. The platform generated fake advertisements and created spoofed websites that mimicked legitimate listing pages to trick victims into submitting payment.
Paying users of Dumitru’s platform, including Ionut-Razvan Sandu, and Dumitru’s co-conspirator, Mihai Daniel Dan, posted ads on sites like eBay, Craigslist and Airbnb, advertising rentals that did not exist.
Once payments were made, the users sent convincing invoices through the platform, the press release said, and notified users when payment was submitted.
The platform encouraged many people to pay in cryptocurrency. Dumitru’s platform also helped create cryptocurrency addresses managed through Coinbase accounts registered under fake identities.
Though Dumitru operated from Romania, federal prosecutors filed the charges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky after investigators tracked the fraudulent financial transactions to Jessamine County, the indictment said.
Dumitru admitted to operating the platform for 99 months, and at least 14,000 individuals were victimized through its use.
Dan, Dumitru’s co-defendant, is pending extradition in the United States.
The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Secret Service, with help from the Romanian National Police and the Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism.
