Sacramento man arrested in alleged $1 million face ID fraud
April 12, 2004 10:00 PM PDT
By: DON THOMPSON - Associated Press Writer
SACRAMENTO (AP) -- A Sacramento man has been arrested on allegations he bilked investors of more than $1 million he said would go in part to develop a face recognition system in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Ross Allen Rojek, 36, was charged with wire and mail fraud for his operation of Face Information Technology, known as Face IT, the FBI said. He also apparently operated American Equity Group LLC under the alias of Jason Williams, the FBI alleged in an affidavit made public Monday.
While Rojek purportedly told investors he was developing a system that would automatically match distinct facial features to a database, "it doesn't seem to be anything he was seriously working on," FBI spokeswoman Karen Twomey Ernst said.
Investors were told patents were pending, but no patent requests had been made, the FBI said.
Investors received an unsolicited telephone call, followed by a business prospectus sent by express mail, the affidavit says. The prospectus included apparently bogus biographies of Face IT's management team alleging they were highly educated former executives of Netscape Communications. Some investors were told the company was on the verge of an initial public offering of stock on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
At least 32 people from around the nation invested at least $467,000 in Face IT, also doing business as Sentry Biometrics, the FBI said. Bank records show that their investments were quickly converted to cash and withdrawn.
Another 47 investors put about $590,000 into American Equity Group, which presented itself as a real estate investment trust headquartered in San Francisco. Of that, $218,900 was transferred to American Entertainment Group, of which Rojek is president, and the rest was quickly disbursed.
The investors were told their money was generating extraordinary returns, but they never saw the money or dividends without repeated requests, the FBI alleged.
nctimes.com
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