USA – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has apprehended a charlatan exhibition organiser who conned exhibitors into booking stands for a non-existent wedding expo.
According to the event ‘organiser’ Karen Tucker, the exhibition was due to be held at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center in March 2010. Exhibitors were asked to pay for their stands in advance through online payment service PayPal, as were would-be advertisers for a show magazine.
The venue was never paid to secure the booking and finally cancelled the agreement ahead of its launch date. However, Tucker continued to promote the event via social networking site Twitter and a local Boston tourism website.
As the case was being investigated by the FBI in Boston, on-the-run Tucker had already begun organising a another bogus show, the Dream Wedding Bridal Expo at the Gaylord Texan in Dallas for mid-December this year.
The plan was exposed when an email blast from a ‘Jennifer Smith’ at the expo went out to potential exhibitors with offers for stands for between US$450 and $950. The Gaylord Texan received the email as well and as it had never been contacted about hosting the event, informed the authorities.
Based on those promotions, about 100 to 200 wedding-industry vendors paid $350 to $4,000 each to operate booths at the show, Boston Police Detective Steven Blair said in March.
Forty seven-year-old Tucker from Pittsburgh will be charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft with a possible 22-year conviction. She had been working with an unnamed accomplice that has yet to be arrested.
According to an affidavit from the FBI, Tucker and her accomplice "have fraudulently used the names of at least two customers to distance themselves from the scheme and used one customer's name and credit card number in an attempt to pay for some services associated with the scheme".
The affidavit also alleges that Tucker was involved in similar scams in Miami, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Dallas, and Columbus, Ohio.
