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Mob Charged with Making Mint on Phone Sex Bills
(submitted by gekkogecko)
Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo!
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mobsters ripped off users of
telephone sex lines and dating services to the tune of
$200 million in what U.S. officials said was a new
method by organized crime families to make money
illegally.
Indictments announced by the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn
on Tuesday said Gambino crime family members
advertised "free" samples of phone sex, horoscope or
dating services but once customers made the call, a
$40 monthly fee would be automatically added to their
telephone bills.
The enterprise stretching from New York to Kansas -- a
departure from traditional Mafia schemes such as
loan-sharking and betting -- made between $50,000 and
$600,000 every day from 1997 to 2001, according to the
indictment.
Ten mobsters and their associates were charged with
the billing fraud known as "telephone cramming,"
including reputed Gambino member Richard Martino, 44,
and his brother Daniel, 53, an assistant professor of
chemistry at a suburban New York college.
The fees were often disguised as a charge for "voice
mail." But when one company, Southwestern Bell, would
no longer process the charges, Richard Martino and an
advertising executive Norman Chanes, 57, set up their
own billing company, the indictment said.
The defendants were charged with racketeering,
racketeering conspiracy, money laundering and other
charges, U.S. prosecutors and the FBI (news - web
sites) said.
Several of the same men were charged last year with
running an Internet pornography scheme. Tuesday's
indictment added to those charge and seeks the
forfeiture of $430 million -- $200 million from the
phone billing scheme and $230 million from the
Internet case.
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Lilith 
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