A downtown Los Angeles man was sentenced Monday to eight years behind bars for stealing about $740,000 from hundreds of victims using a variety of social media and other schemes.
Amir Golshan, 25, was also ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Golshan pleaded guilty in July to federal counts of unauthorized computer access to obtain information, wire fraud and accessing a computer to defraud and obtain value.
Over the course of the scheme, Golshan employed a variety of means to defraud victims.
From at least April 2019 to last February, he used Zelle merchant fraud, in which he fraudulently offered fake and nonexistent services on social media; "SIM swapping" and social media account takeovers, in which he would take control of online accounts to extort the account owners and defraud additional people; and impersonating Apple Inc. support personnel to steal digital property, according to papers filed in Los Angeles federal court.
"SIM swapping" is the process of fraudulently inducing a carrier to reassign a cell phone number from the legitimate subscriber or user's SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card to a card controlled by another without the legitimate user's approval.
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