LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A Mexican man accused of wire fraud and money laundering used a counterfeit passport in a scheme to sell vehicles online, according to a federal indictment returned on Wednesday in Las Vegas. He didn’t own the vehicles he was selling, if they existed at all, according to court documents.
Jose Carlos Dalli Castro, who also used five other names, used a counterfeit Spanish passport to open a personal checking account with the intention of laundering money through the account. He set up shell corporations and bank accounts to appear legitimate, and he would wire funds from buyers to the accounts in the name of a shell corporation, according to a case prepared by federal prosecutors. He would then quickly drain the account and abscond with the money, never intending to deliver the vehicle, according to court documents.
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Victims of the scheme were from Pennsylvania, California, Louisiana, Ohio, New York and Massachusetts.
Dalli Castro was also known by the aliases Julio Castro Lopez, Mario Mejia Rojas, Alberto Silva Valdez, Mike Boris Oganov, and Amer Daoud Panou, authorities said…