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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA husband and wife from central Indiana who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $1.2 million in merchandise from online retail giant Amazon have been sentenced to more than five years in prison each, federal prosecutors announced Monday.
An associate from Indianapolis received a two-year sentence.
Erin Finan, 38, and Leah Finan, 38, pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud and money laundering charges, and were sentenced to 71 months and 68 months in prison, respectively. They live in the Anderson-Muncie area, according to prosecutors.
In addition, an Indianapolis man has been sentenced to 24 months in prison in connection with the Finans’ thefts. Danijel Glumac, 29, of Indianapolis, pleaded guilty to money laundering and to fencing items the Finans stole.
The three defendants also have been ordered to pay full restitution of $1,218,504.
Between 2014 and 2016, the Finans and Glumac stole and sold thousands of consumer electronics items such as GoPro digital cameras, Microsoft Xbox consoles, Samsung smartwatches, Microsoft Surface tablets, Apple Macbooks, and other consumer electronics, prosecutors said.
The Finans bought the items from Amazon using hundreds of fake online identities. They then contacted Amazon to report the items were damaged and requested replacements for free.
Glumac pleaded guilty to buying more than 2,000 items from the Finans and selling them to a buyer in New York. Glumac bought the items from the Finans in person on a near-daily basis, often in parking lots around Indianapolis, before marking up their prices and shipping them off to the buyer—who then would sell them to the public, often on Amazon.
In total, the Finans stole, and Glumac sold, more than $1.2 million in consumer electronics.
The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the Indiana State Police.
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