NEWARK, N.J.
A Bronx, New York, woman was arrested Wednesday and charged with fraudulently obtaining over $200,000 worth of iPhones, prosecutors announced.
Rosanna Lucrecia Cruel Blanco, 39, is charged by criminal complaint with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.
Click here to read the criminal complaint: DOJ
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
From Dec. 17, 2017, to December 2020, Blanco and her conspirators devised a scheme to fraudulently obtain replacement cellular phones from an insurance company – Company 1 – by assuming the identities of wireless customers and filing false claims under Company 1’s handset insurance program.
The handsets were predominantly iPhones with a value of approximately $700 to $1,000 per handset.
Blanco and her conspirators contacted Company 1, posed as legitimate customers and submitted false claims to Company 1 for damage, theft, or loss on hundreds of handsets owned by the legitimate customers.
Blanco and her conspirators provided Company 1 with false identification, typically in the form of a New York or New Jersey driver’s license falsified to reflect the name of the legitimate customer.
They also provided Company 1 with new shipping contact names and addresses that were different from the actual customers.
The new shipping addresses included locations in the Bronx, Yonkers, White Plains, Manhattan, and various locations in New Jersey.
Based on the false claims and the fake identification, Company 1 shipped the replacement iPhones telephones via UPS or FedEx to the new contact names and addresses provided by Blanco and her conspirators.
The iPhones were then picked up by Blanco and her conspirators. More than 100 replacement cellular telephones were shipped to Blanco and her conspirators.
Total losses from the scheme exceed $200,000.
Blanco is facing up to 22 years in prison if convicted of the charges.