Bridgeport resident Rajhni Yankana was sentenced to five months of imprisonment, followed five months of home detention and three years of supervised release, for defrauding the e-commerce giant Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).
According to the charges brought against him, Yankana created multiple vendor accounts with Amazon allowing him to sell merchandise through the website on a third-party basis. He created accounts using false names, email addresses and other identifying information, and would claim shipping Amazon valuable merchandise to be held for sale by the company. But he never shipped the merchandise and later falsely claimed that it had been lost, supporting his false claims with fabricated documents.
Amazon sent Yankana a series of refunds for the purportedly lost merchandise. Through this scam, Yankana defrauded Amazon of $210,836.97.
Yankana pleaded guilty last month to one count of wire fraud. In addition to his prison sentence, he was ordered by the court to pay full restitution to Amazon. He is currently released on a $50,000 bond and is required to report to prison on October 27.
Yankana is the second Fairfield County scammer sentenced this month for the same scheme – on Sept. 5, Oshane Stewart was sentenced to 18 months for defrauding Amazon of approximately $742,000. Stewart’s brother, Kenoy Stewart, who defrauded Amazon of more than $1 million, is awaiting sentence.
Photo by Mike Mozart / Flickr Creative Commons
