Fraud and Prevention

Orange County Man Sentenced for HELOC Fraud Scheme

By James Comtois

LOS ANGELES - An Orange County man has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for orchestrating two identity theft schemes in which he obtained personal information from hundreds of consumers and used the data in an attempt to fraudulently obtain $1.5 million from home-equity lines of credit and credit card accounts.

According to George S. Cardona, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, Martin Quoc Pham of Garden Grove, Calif., was sentenced to 132 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $540,000 in restitution.

Pham pleaded guilty in June to a series of felony charges, including aggravated identity theft, related to two fraud schemes. In both schemes, Pham, with the help of co-conspirators, obtained personal identity information to fraudulently access victims' accounts to obtain money and goods.

In the HELOC scheme, Pham and his associates used the personal identity information of others to take over HELOCs at JPMorgan Chase Bank. Once they had online access to the HELOCs, Pham and his co-conspirators transferred money into bank accounts they controlled. The scheme netted more than $1 million in five months.

Pham was also sentenced for a separate identity theft scheme in which he used the personal information of others to encode counterfeit credit cards that were used at Wal-Mart stores and Sam's Clubs across Southern California.

Pham's co-conspirator, Joe Inthisone, previously pleaded guilty to participating in both schemes and is scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 19. Kyle Kongchan pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraudulent activity in connection with access devices and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Viet Nguyen pleaded guilty to participating in the credit card scam and is scheduled for sentencing on Dec. 10.