The States : Travel Fraud Figure Jailed

A Malibu man has been sentenced to six years in prison for heading up what federal authorities say is the largest boiler-room fraud operation ever uncovered in California. Lawrence David Berry, 40, was also ordered to pay a $250,000 fine for his role in a vacation travel scheme that sought to bilk more than 3,000 victims of more than $1.1 million by offering “free” trips to Hawaii. Potential victims were told that they had won a free trip to Hawaii, and that their credit card number was needed to “validate” them for the trip. Unauthorized charges were then placed against the victims’ credit card accounts and laundered through legitimate third-party merchants’ accounts in order to obtain payment from the banks.