Virginia woman get 12 years in prison for one of the biggest coupon scams in US history
Virginia woman get 12 years in prison for one of the biggest coupon scams in US history
A Virginia Beach woman was sentenced to 12 years in prison for running one of biggest coupon counterfeiting rings in U.S. history that led to more than $31.8 million in retail loss, authorities said.
Lori Ann Talens, 41, ran the scheme from April 2017 through May 2020, and pleaded guilty to mail fraud, wire fraud and health care fraud before she was sentenced Tuesday by a federal judge in Norfolk.
Her husband, 43-year-old Pacifico Talens Jr., previously pleaded guilty for his role in supporting the scam and was sentenced to seven years behind bars.
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The couple used Facebook and Telegram "to find groups of coupon enthusiasts and sell them counterfeit coupons," prosecutors said.
Lori Ann Talens used the online name “MasterChef" and made counterfeit vouchers that "were virtually indistinguishable from authentic coupons and were often created with inflated values, far in excess of what an authentic coupon would offer, in order to receive items from retail for free or for a greatly reduced price," according to a prosecution statement.
The biggest victims of the scam included makers and sellers of of Kimberly-Clark paper products ($8.99 million), Proctor & Gamble household goods ($2.8 million), food giant Unilever ($2.5 million) and Henkel Corporation cleaning supplies ($1.7 million).
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/virginia-woman-get-12-years-in-prison-for-one-of-the-biggest-coupon-scams-in-us-history/ar-AAOykOe?ocid=msedgntp
A Virginia woman ‘perfected the art’ of making fake coupons. She’s now going to prison for it.
Beethoven had music. Picasso had painting. Lori Ann Talens’s genius manifested itself in a more peculiar way.
“Talens perfected the art of counterfeiting coupons,” federal prosecutor Joseph Kosky wrote in court documents. “Her skill was such that the coupons she created were virtually indistinguishable from genuine [ones].”
Talens’s tools were glossy paper, corporate logos and a computer she used to stitch together disparate text, pictures and bar codes to make what are known as “Frankenstein” counterfeits, all while keeping track of everything on a spreadsheet. Over a little more than three years, federal investigators said Talens, 41, and her husband, Pacifico, cheated manufacturers and merchants of more than $31 million by producing bogus coupons that gave customers merchandise at steep discounts — or for free.
The Talenses made nearly $400,000 selling the fakes to more than 2,000 customers across the country. About 100 companies — including Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Ziploc — were their victims. The hardest hit was Kimberly-Clark, the paper products company, which lost nearly $9 million.
“The scale of the [Talenses] counterfeit coupon scheme was truly massive,” Kosky wrote.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/09/17/virginia-woman-sentenced-counterfeit-coupon-scam/
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