Nicolaos Kantartzis, of Bethesda, Maryland, was sentenced on January 4, 2012, to 3 months in federal prison and 3 months home confinement, followed by 3 years of supervised release, and a $20,000 fine for wire fraud in connection with a six year scheme to fraudulently obtain $4 million in payments from over 200 victims, including federal government agencies, a homeless shelter, banks and airlines, for toll-free phone calls placed from his payphones. Kantartzis was also ordered to pay $2.6 million in restitution.
“Kantartzis stole taxpayer dollars by executing his fraudulent ‘robodialing’ scheme that compensated him for each call made to a toll-free number,” said Inspector General Brian D. Miller. “We put an end to his scheme."
In September, Kantartzis pleaded guilty to wire fraud for programming payphones he owned, which would robotically place repeated phone calls to hundreds of toll-free numbers. For each phone call his payphones made, he collected a $.494 dial around compensation fee that was paid by the toll-free number owners. He programmed toll-free calls to between 200 and 250 victims, including the U.S. General Services Administration, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Education and the Internal Revenue Service, as well as Dell Computer, the District of Columbia Homeless Shelter Hotline, financial institutions and airlines. Kantartzis fraudulently received at least $4 million in dial around compensation between 2005 and 2011.
Kantartzis was caught after an employee at the General Services Administration noticed an irregular pattern of incoming calls on agency toll free lines and notified the Office of Inspector General, which conducted an investigation with the FBI.
