"Six reputed mobsters pleaded guilty before jury selection was to begin Monday in a case alleging that the Gambino crime family placed hundreds of millions of dollars in unauthorized charges on unsuspecting consumers' credit cards and telephone bills.
"Alleged Gambino captain Salvatore Locascio, made member Richard Martino and four mob associates pleaded guilty to charges including money laundering and conspiracy to commit mail fraud.
...
"Prosecutors said the defendants helped set up shell corporations that advertised free services such as psychic readings, phone sex and horoscopes. But calling the numbers triggered unauthorized monthly charges on customers' phone bills, eventually grossing more than $420 million for the Gambino members and their associates, prosecutors said.
...
(and also direct credit card fraud) :
"Prosecutors said $230 million in fraudulent charges was levied on consumers who believed the sites needed their card numbers for age verification ..."
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key snipped-for-privacy@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have seen cases like this, where web sites have demanded credit card numbers as 'proof' that the holder was over the age of 21 and they (web sites) have said they did not intend to charge the credit card, only to use it for validation purposes. Yet they insisted on complete details from the card, then proceeded to put through a small charge. I never have trusted any site which said 'all they wanted to do was age verification using a credit card'. PAT]