Camden County Woman Admits Role in Fraudulent Delivery Scheme

TRENTON, N.J. – A Camden County, New Jersey, woman today admitted receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars of consumer electronics before reselling the stolen goods in connection with a delivery fraud scheme, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig announced.

Yanira Medina-Roman, 36, of West Berlin, New Jersey, pleaded guilty by videoconference before U.S. Senior District Judge Anne E. Thompson to an information charging her with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

From July 2018 through October 2018, Medina-Roman and others carried out a delivery fraud scheme targeting a corporate victim and government agency that resulted in the theft of more than $250,000 of consumer electronics. Medina-Roman and her conspirators used Medina-Roman’s residence – then in Highlands, New Jersey – as the delivery address for the stolen goods. Medina-Roman, under the direction of her conspirators, sold the goods for profit either to a fence of stolen goods, or to third parties through a national classified advertisement website, while retaining for herself a portion of the sale proceeds.

A related cyberattack involved the appropriation without authorization of the identity of an employee of a government agency, which Medina-Roman’s conspirators used by manipulating the employee’s government email address to place orders for consumer electronics and gift cards with a corporate victim located in Maryland. The Maryland corporate victim, believing the emails were authentic and sent by the government employee, with whom the corporate victim had a prior business relationship, was deceived into delivering the consumer electronics to Medina-Roman’s residential address. 

The conspiracy charge to which Medina-Roman pleaded guilty carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, or twice the gross pecuniary gain/loss.  Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 10, 2021. 

Acting U.S. Attorney Honig credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge George M. Crouch Jr.; special agents of the U.S. Secret Service, under the direction of Special Agent In Charge Mark McKevitt; special agents of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service – Cyber Field Office, under the direction of  Special Agent in Charge Kenneth A. DeChellis; inspectors of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, under the direction of Inspector in Charge Damon Wood in Philadelphia; and officers of the Highlands, New Jersey, Police Department, under the direction of Chief Robert Burton, with the investigation leading to today’s guilty plea.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric A. Boden of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Criminal Division in Trenton.