Golden man sentenced to 5 years in prison for national telemarketing scheme, tax evasion
DENVER (KDVR) — A Golden man pleaded guilty in July 2022 and was sentenced earlier this month for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and tax evasion for a fraud scheme that impacted over 150,000 consumer victims.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota, Henry Aragon, 54, of Golden , "devised" and took part in a nationwide telemarking fraud scheme involving magazine subscription sales. Aragon and co-defendants were accused of defrauding over 150,000 consumers across the country, many of whom the U.S. Attorney's Office said were older or susceptible to fraud.
To do this, a network of dozens of fake magazine sale companies was created and located across the U.S. and Canada. Using telemarketing call centers, the companies used deceptive sales scripts to defraud victims by "inducing them — through a series of lies and misrepresentations — into making large or repeat payments to the companies," the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Aragon was accused of pressuring consumers into making payments related to the supposed magazine subscriptions. Call makers used a fraudulent "renewal" script that presented telemarketers as representatives of the consumer's existing magazine subscription company. The telemarketers would lie to consumers, the U.S. Attorney's Office stated, telling them they had an offer to reduce monthly subscription costs.
"In reality, the company had no existing relationship with the magazines, and they were actually fraudulently signing the consumer-victims up for expensive and entirely new magazine subscriptions," the U.S. Attorney's Office stated.
The results were consumers who went from having a single magazine subscription to more than a dozen in some cases, all with different fake magazines. The magazines were "sold" under the guise of reducing consumers' monthly bills. Throughout the scheme, Aragon and his companies collected over $19 million from victims, the U.S. Attorney's Office stated.
During this, Aragon also didn't pay taxes on the money he and his fraudulent businesses made, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota said.
"By evading his tax liability, Aragon unfairly shifted the tax burden to honest American taxpayers to fund vital services such as education and infrastructure," said Tom Demeo, Acting Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation, Denver Field Office. "IRS-CI special agents identified more than $2 billion in tax fraud last fiscal year, and we will remain committed to holding tax cheats accountable."
Aragon will serve 60 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release, and will be required to repay $19.05 million to victims of the fraud scheme, plus $1.49 million to the Internal Revenue Service for his tax evasion case.
