SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – A Detroit man and six current or former Southfield residents from the self-described “Clear Gods” are accused of conducting 26,000 transactions as part of a $28 million fake cellphone upgrade scheme.
Scheme details
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Officials said the “Clear Gods” group came up with a scheme to use people’s personal information to acquire Apple devices on credit and resell them for profit.
Members of the group would buy people’s personal information from various locations, including “dump sites” on the internet, according to authorities. They would then use that information to open customer cellphone accounts with AT&T, officials said.
After doing a credit check, the group would add themselves or associates as authorized users on the fraudulent accounts, which allowed them to charge devices to the customers, court records show.
Officials said the thieves would enter stores to “upgrade” the service lines on those accounts, and the new devices would be purchased on credit or charged to the fake accounts that had been set up.
Members of the “Clear Gods” would then reverse the upgrades from the service lines, which often allowed them to repeat the scheme at other Apple store locations, according to authorities.
They accessed AT&T’s computer systems to create those false accounts, add authorized users, and clear the fraudulent upgrades from the service lines, officials said. At the start of the scheme, they did so by stealing RSA tokens and employee identifications and calling into an internal AT&T hotline while impersonating retail employees, according to court records.
When AT&T restricted employee tokens -- disallowing remote access using personal computers -- members of the group acquired actual AT&T networked devices through social engineering and “sleight-of-hand swapping” of broken or disabled tables for active tables from employees at stores, authorities said.
Sometimes, members of the group would outright steal networked devices from AT&T stores, according to officials.
“Throughout the scheme, the defendants routinely sought out and worked with corrupt AT&T retail store employees,” a release says.
The scheme began as early as June 2017 and continued through at least September 2019, according to authorities.
Officials said the group conducted more than 26,000 fraudulent transactions and stole more than $28 million.
7 people indicted
Seven people were indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft:
- Emmanuel Luter, 31, of Atlanta, Georgia -- formerly of Southfield
- Joseph Ingram, 31, of Atlanta, Georgia -- formerly of Southfield
- Dalontae Davis, 31, of Sachse, Texas -- formerly of Southfield
- Donnell Taylor, 30, of Southfield
- Dominique Barnes, 33, of Southfield
- Delano Bush, 32, of Southfield
- Joshua Motley, 33, of Detroit
“As alleged in the indictment, the defendants engaged in an incredibly sophisticated scheme to defraud, evolving their tactics over time in what was ultimately a failed attempt to evade detection and avoid prosecution,” United States Attorney Dawn Ison said. “This indictment is the culmination of significant efforts by multiple law enforcement agencies across multiple jurisdictions.”