Paradise Valley telecom companies accused of placing hundreds of millions of fraudulent robocalls

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Paradise Valley telecom companies accused of placing hundreds of millions of fraudulent robocalls

Michaela Chesin Arizona Republic
Published 8:00 a.m. MT Aug. 4, 2020 | Updated 9:17 a.m. MT Aug. 4, 2020

A Paradise Valley couple accused of facilitating hundreds of millions of fraudulent robocalls would be prohibited from ever operating a telecom business under a proposed settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.

It is a first-of-its-kind effort by the Justice Department to hold a telecom carrier responsible as a facilitator of fraud schemes.

The DOJ alleged that Nicholas and Natasha Palumbo, operating as VoIP carriers, transmitted calls from entities to other carriers within the United States, and ultimately individual phones. The DOJ alleged foreign-based call centers, which fraudulently claimed to be affiliated with government and business entities, used the service to place robocalls to U.S. victims.

“The defendants also sold U.S. phone numbers to foreign entities, which were used as victim call-back numbers as part of massive robocalling fraud schemes,” the Department of Justice wrote in a March news release.

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